Recap Here we are again with another blog post. Since the last blog post, I have now read up to and including chapter 14. I think the book has been getting a lot better. We are starting to get to see the secret lives of the characters and learn new things about them. At this point, readers are able to see the struggles and secrets of the characters. Character Analysis- I've been tracking two characters in this book, Boo Radley and Calpurnia. Last week I mainly focused on my main man Boo Radley. However, this week, I will be talking about Calpurnia. I feel like in these last few chapters we have learned more about her character and her personality. We get a look into her morals and her thoughts. An example of this can be found on page 126 when she states, "You're not gonna change any of them by talking right, they've got to want to learn themselves, and when they don't want to learn there's nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language." This shows her viewpoints on interacting with other people. While she was talking about respecting the language people use without trying to change them if they don't want to learn. I feel like this also applies to issues outside of language. For example, I feel like this could apply to political views. With her reasoning, you won't be able to change the way someone sees an issue if they are not willing to think differently. If people are unwilling to look at things for a different perspective, you will not be able to impact their views. As readers, we also learn about Calpurnia through what others say about her. Atticus, for example, talks about her on page 137. He states, "She tried to bring them up according to her lights, and Cal's lights are pretty good." This gives us an insight on what Cal is like, but it also tells us her role in the book. She is there to give the kids moral guidance. In that way, she is somewhat of a mother figure to Scout and Jem. Discussion In class, as always, we had a discussion on the chapters we had read. During this discussion we talked about a couple of different things. We talked about the role of Calpurnia and her role in the story. The class talked about the role of the character Dill and why he was important to the novel. While we talked about those topics, one of them really caught my attention and intrigued me. We talked about what the mockingbird symbolized in the novel. It obviously has some importance as it is included in the title. One person said it represented African Americans and the struggles they were facing in that time. I on the other hand said the mockingbird symbolized the innocent. In the book, Miss Maudie describes the mockingbird as something that only brings joy to people and doesn't harm anyone. That is how I came up with the idea of a mockingbird symbolizing the innocent. Someone else said that maybe the mockingbird could easily represent both the innocent and African Americans. They were innocent, but still treated poorly and falsely accused of crimes. In the next discussion, I hope that we discuss these two questions:
Conclusion In conclusion, I am really enjoying this book. I feel like Scout is an interesting narrator as we get to see things from a child's perspective. I also think that this novel will allow me and my peers to learn more about the issue of racism that could be found in this time. I feel like it is easily shown in this book in comparison to novels such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (which we just finished reading).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
May 2017
Categories |