One of the most well known pieces of American literature is To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. As we are currently reading this book in my English class, this post is going to involve my reflection on the book so far. I have only read the first 9 chapters, but I am already becoming invested in this novel. I like having Scout, who is a young girl, as a narrator instead of a third person narrator. I feel like it brings us more into the story and shows us the story through the eyes of a child. I think all of the characters are well written and I am intrigued to learn more about them and see them grow. As for the the themes that are seen in the book so far, one main ones is based around the understanding of others. One of the characters, Atticus, mentions how we cannot truly understand a person until we walk a mile in their shoes. This relates to a topic we have addressed in our class which is about the secret lives we live. As Atticus mentions, we do not know the secrets people are hiding and therefore we are unable to fully understand a person. They might be going through things that we have no idea about. As we read this novel, we are supposed to track a character and analyze them. We have to take note of what they say,do, hear, think, and feel. I was assigned the characters Boo Radley and Calpurnia. Today, I'm going to focus more on Boo Radley. In a way, Boo is a very mysterious character. He has been hidden away for many years by his father and uncle and no one from the outside world has been in contact with him. The townspeople do not know much about him so they create these myths about him and make him out to be a monster and someone to be feared. As the story has progressed, we start to learn more about him. We do not learn about him through his words and what he says, however. His actions reveal more about his character than anything else. For example, on page 58 it is discovered that Boo had helped Jem, Scout's older brother, by fixing the pants that he had previously ripped when trying to run away from something. This was the first example of the reader learning who Boo was though his actions. It showed the first glimpse of kindness from him. It makes the children realize that Boo might not be the monster that people say he is. After reading the first couple of chapters, we had a discussion in class about what we had read. I learned some new insight on this one moment in particular. At the end of chapter 7, Jem is said to be crying. I originally thought he was crying because he would not longer be getting the gifts from Boo and he was upset about that. However, someone brought up another reason for his crying. Jem had finally realized how lonely Boo must feel and how important the connection Boo had started to form with the children was. He realized that Boo had lost his only connection to the outside world when Nathan Radley, Boo's uncle, stopped them from communicating. In the next discussion, I hope we discuss the situation Boo is in as well as how Scout and Jem are changing throughout the story. In thinking of these topics, these are two questions I hope to talk about:
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