TKM - Part I Analysis

We are preparing for our formal test on the novel "To Kill a Mockingbird", so I decided to answer a few questions about the first part of the book.

1. What is the reason for the author's choice of a young narrator?

In those times, children weren't allowed to have an opinion. And as we know, this novel tries to destroy all those prejudices about people, specially youngsters and African American. Everyone has the right to express what they feel.

2. How does Jem and Scout's views of Boo Radley change during  part 1 of the book?

First, they thought that Boo wass a bad person, very scary and dangerous. But many events occured to make them change their mind. One of them was what happened with Jem's trousers, because he found them nice and tidy after running from the Radley's place when he heard a shot. Another important occation, was when the children found gifts in a tree that was outside Boo's house. He wasn't as bad as they thought before, he was just oppressed by Nathan, his brother.

3. Atticus tells the children several times that they need to walk in someone else's shoes before judging the person. Describe times when Atticus, Scout or Jem walk in someone else's shoes. How does this change how they view the situations? What role does this advice play in sympathy and compassion? 

Atticus has always tried to teach their children to be educated and not to bother anyone. One of the many possible examples of this, is what happened with Walter Cunningham. In the school, he didn't have anything for lunch, so the teacher tried to lend him money. But his values told him that he couldn't accept something he couldn't pay afterwards. When Scout tried to explain this to her teacher, she harmed her with a ruler. In the break, she fought with Walter because of this situation, but when Jem saw them, he invited Cunningham for lunch. While eating, he poured all the Maple Syrup in his dish, making Scout curse him. This made Calpurnia and Atticus to send her to the kitchen and to be nice with Walter. His life wasn't as easy as the life of her.

4. How do you think Atticus managed his role as a single parent? 

He educated his children in a moral way, teaching them to be correct and act with kindness. But he wasn't really a single parent, as Calpurnia and Mrs. Maudie Atkinson also passed a long time with Scout, teaching her what she should do, similar to what a mother would have done.

5. Discuss race issues in part 1 of the book.

One of the main issues in the US of the early XX Century was the racism. Most of the people of Maycomb discriminated African Americans, including the children in the school. That's why many of them bothered Scout, because his father defended "negroes". Even the Finch family was upset because of Atticus defending Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman. 

6. From your reading of part 1, What does To Kill a Mockingbird teach us about how people cope with issues of race and class? Do you classify people in your world as different "folks?" Do you see those sort of distinctions today? 

Even Harper Lee passed probably by discrimination. She was not black, but her father, an important lawyer, defended "negroes". Racism has always been in the mind of the people, during all mankind probably. Even nowadays, we still discriminate. Of course, it isn't such a brutal discrimination, but we still alienate them, though. In Chile, for example, it isn't common to see an African person or an Asian one, and that may be a reason of why we look at them strangely. But in New Zealand, for example, you could find Indian, Chinese, African or Polynesian people everywhere, and nobody would ever think to tell them that they were worse or something like that. 

7. Who is your favorite character from part 1 and why? 

Probably it's Atticus. He represents the moral part of the novel. He follows what he believes and teaches his children to do the same. Even if everyone is against Tom Robinson, he defends him because he thinks it isn't fair to condemn him. His vision of the world is sincerely awesome. A great character!

Interhouses: Debate Tournament

The day finally arrived! I had been waiting with expectation this day, and it didn't disappoint me. It was great and my house, the Mackay house, could win some points for the full Interhouses Tournament. Our team was composed by Mingi Park as a first speaker, David Flint as third speaker and me. 


For the first debate I was very nervous, because it was against Sommerscales, and they had a great team, but hopefully we won them in the motion "This house would subject young people to night-time curfews". We were against this, so our arguments were based mainly in the Human Rights and that it's counter-productive to have curfews. In one hand, it would be impossible, or too expensive to have a curfew for every youngster, and also, as History has proven, every time you oppress the freedom of the people of a society, the exactly opposite happens. For example, as David said, in the US of the '20s, the government stated that alcohol was illegal from now and on. In 10 years, the alcoholism and smuggling raised in the society.



In the final debate, for the first and second place of the tournament, the motion against Sutherland was "This house believes science is a threat to society". We were also against this, so we based in the evilness of people during all the History and that we can't put limits to ourselves because of our nature. Also, our arguments included things like pollution caused by science, that it enables destruction and that it could be used to control citizens, as in George Orwell's novel, 1984.

This was an amazing experience, and I would like to have debates more often. Hope it repeats next year!

To Kill a Mockingbird - Chapter 1

Here I'll answer some questions about the first chapter of "To Kill a Mockingbird".

Calpurnia in "To Kill a Mockingbird" movie.

1. What do you learn in this chapter about Maycomb, Atticus Finch and his family? : About the place of Maycomb, they say that it's an old town, were they aren't any children apart from Jem and Scout. It's not a big city, it's quite poor. Atticus is the father of Jean-Louise Finch and Jeremy Atticus Finch. He is a lawyer, and because of his work, he isn't close to his children. The family itself are them plus Calpurnia, the housekeeper. Jem and Scout's mother passed away when she was two years old, four years ago.
2. Describe Calpurnia as Scout depicts her in Chapter 1.: She is a African-American housekeeper, very skinny, with big hands, and according to Scout, her presence is quite tyrannical. Atticus often is by her side in the discussions.
3. What does Dill dare Jem to do?: To go and touch Boo Radley's house, so he would come out and they could see him (because nobody never saw him, he never went out).
4. The townspeople of Maycomb have some fears and superstitions about the Radley place. Describe these fears and superstitions.: People said that it was a cursed house, that the Radley family was a bad family, because they didn't go to church. Their doors were always closed, so they were quite strange people. People didn't like Boo because when he was young he formed something similar to a gang in the town, and they were never gangs in Maycomb.
5. How important is bravery to Jem?: It is one of the most important things for him. And one of the motifs of this, is because he has a sister (Scout), and he can't be coward in front of her.
6. What do you notice about the narrative voice and viewpoint of the story?: The narrator is the character Scout, so everything we read is told by her, with her feelings and thoughts in between the story. It's an innocent point of view of the situations.

Scout in "To Kill a Mockingbird" movie.

To Kill a Mockingbird

This book was written by Harper Lee, and as I have been saying, we must explore the context of production.

What is the cultural and educational background of the author?

She was born in 1926, in Alabama, US. As her father, she studied laws, but soon she decided to travel to New York and pursue her dream: become a writer. It wasn't as easy as it may sound, so she passed many bad moments at NY. When she was young, her neighbour was Truman Capote, and he would become a famous writer. After a couple of years, she received a letter with one year's wage that said "You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas.". After that, she started writing novels, until she finally published her first book: "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1960).

What are the values and aesthetic concerns of the culture of the author (literature movement, cultural movement, society of that time, etc)? What important social, political or economic issues took place in the author's times?

She was born in the mid '20s, therefore she was living a period of plenty economic expenses after the end of the WWI. Then she passed through the Great Depression (1929) and the WWII and Cold War. This context of shaped her type of writing (and living). This were moments in which were the World was fighting for a more egalitarian society. They fought for the rights of African-American, of Jewish, of Homosexual. All of this can be seen at her first novel, and the one that I'll speak about in the next posts.

The Dust Bowl was another event that occured in the '30s, and it consisted in a huge dust storm that passed through Mexico, United States and Canada. Of course something like this is a very important incident, therefore it made people change their lives, maybe they lost someone of their families or friends. Here is a emotional video of what happened.


                                            The Great Depression and The Dust Bowl

Literature Contexts

Contexts are the circumstances that surround the text, and could be used to identify its real meaning. There are mainly two types of context:

• Context of production: Historical and biographical facts.
• Context of reception: You (as a reader) are very important in understanding the meaning of the text. Every experience you have, your emotions and feelings affect the way you see the text.

Literature

From now on, I'll change the main topic (Language) for Literature. Its definition is: "a highly developed use of language in that is the stylized manipulation of language for larger effect (purpose) and/or affect (emotional response)" (Language and Literature Course Companion p.9)


To understand it better, my task is to formulate some questions about the following fragments of the texts:"The Leopard" (Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa) and "Notable American Women" (Ben Marcus).

The questions I asked myself about the first text, were:

• How important are the mythical references it gives?
• What are the relationships between the possible characters?
• Is it a good translation of Italian?

And for the second text:

• What's "Father of Distinction"?
• About the last term, is it used literally?
• Why does the author put his name in the text?

In the following posts, I'll analyze more deeply Literature.

Gender Ads

The first ad consisted in a energetic drink for women, that gave them the energy to do everything they have to do: clean, wash, cook. It's obvious that this was the male-centred point of view. 

Last week we prepared in groups two ads: one in a male-centred point of view, and the other one as feminists. My partners were Martín Macchiavello and Joaquín Oporto. Of course, the most difficult ad for us was the feminist, because we are not used to think in that way. 


The other ad was a hammer for men, but not any one. It was a special hammer that, if a woman calibrated it, men would stop hitting their fingers. And if the man didn't have a wife, he should call an emergency service, so they send a woman to calibrate it.




This was a pretty fun activity, specially in the part of the feminist ad (the hammer), because probably I would have never thought about something like that if it wasn't for this work. It helped me to have a wider view of the World and women.

Language peculiarities

Swearing

Probably you have said or heard someone swearing, don't you? The question I've been thinking about is: Why do people swear? ; Does swearing help in anything? 


Well, people often swear when one of the following circumstances occurs:

• When you forget something
• When you harm yourself

And the functions of swearing might be:

• Add emphasis (for example, in a motivational speech before a rugby/football match)
• Add humour
• Hide fears or insecurities

And now, does it help in anything? The guys of Mythbusters have also think about this and the following video is an extract of the TV show:

                Mythbusters: Adam Savage swearing test

Probably it does help in something, but there's nothing for sure. But I can assure that even if it doesn't help in anything, you will continue swearing, because one gets used to it.

Names

Names vary depending of where you are. For example, probably if you live in Latin America, you don't know many people called Sergey, Muhammad or Mahoma. But if you go to Russia (Sergey) or to Arabia, you probably find much more people with this names. 

It's very common for people to get wrong the names that come from other cultures. And in many countries, it might be a disrespect for them. For example, when I went to New Zealand, they called me Sebastian, instead of Sebastián, and probably I didn't called them as I should.

Also, depending on your grade of intimacy with the other person, you may call him Mr., Sir or Mate.

Names are often a way to identify someone's socioeconomic group, but this isn't something you can trust too much.

Myth of Venus and Mars

This myth proposes that men speak differently than women. The following are the main differences:

• Language is more important for women (and they speak more)
• Women have more ability in communicating
• Men talk about facts, while women about feelings
• Men use language in a competitive way; women, in a cooperative way.

Every one of this differences make men and women misunderstood sometimes.

Language and Indentity

Every individual's use of language is unique. Language makes people, so it's something that must be important for us. Some factors that make you be "You", are the following:

• Gender
• Parent's language
• Geographical area
• Education
• Friends influence
• Favourite words

Also remember that you don't use the same language in every occation, don't you? For example, if you are speaking with the Headmaster of your school, you won't say "What's up dude?", as you may say to a friend. We as humans have the capability of recognizing different situations, based on their formality. 

Other important factor, as I said before, is the gender. Try to think in words your gender usually say and the other one doesn't.Probably you have thought a few. This is because male and female are different. In fact, they speak different. Women often use more abstract words, while men more concrete ones. There are mainly two postures of seeing the life:

• Feminism: point of view that put women in the top, being better than men.
• Machismo: common view of the past civilizations that thinks men are better than women.