To Kill a Mockingbird

[jack]

This is an interesting one. It seems like everyone was forced to read it at school, and is mostly still annoyed about that, but about half of people think it's great, and half don't like it at all. (Or maybe no-one likes it but me and the education system, I forget.)

I just reread it. I noticed that when I last read it, my impression from reading it at school lingered, which is seeing everything from Scout's point of view. But now, I see everything from all the adults' point of view instead, which gives a fascinating binocular vision on all the events. I remember Scouts painful first lesson at school, but now I sympathise with the poor, young teacher which I never thought to do at the time; and see a lot of the narrative with the Radley house imagining what young Radley would have thought of it

In retrospect, the English lessons about it were reasonably good, I was just at a stage of objecting to analysing books on principle because all analysis seemed either obvious, or nonsense. A few small questions raised in class however still linger in my mind:

* Jem and Scout make a snowman out of mud and a thin coating of snow. I was told that was a metaphor, but obstinately refused to listen. What do you think? If so, which metaphor?
* A very unsavoury question. Mayella Ewell says she's never kissed a man. "What my pa does doesn't count." Is that referring to family affection or sexual abuse? It doesn't make any difference to the narrative, since she's awfully physically abused anyway. I thought the innocent reading made more sense, but the fact that line was there inclined the other one.
* Atticus reports Tom Robinson cutting and running from the jail he was sent to. "Seems to me he was tired of taking white men's chances." Is that true, or a mildly comforting lie to Scout on account of him being murdered by the guards and a story spun. (As always, when I first read it, I took the literal/simple reading.)

Comments

[atreic.livejournal.com]

I love it, but never had to read it for school. We got Of Mice and Men filling the American Classic niche

[pizza.maircrosoft.com (from livejournal.com)]

The other English set read Of Mice and Men. I can't think what we read at the same time. Animal Farm?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

That would make sense as a set text, as story is not what makes it good, so analysing it is probably mostly a plus :)

[pizza.maircrosoft.com (from livejournal.com)]

can't say I liked it much or have had an inclination to read it since. The other thing I we read at GCSE (or the only other one I remember) I loved and read to pieces.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Which was the other?

[pizza.maircrosoft.com (from livejournal.com)]

Jane Eyre

[pizza.maircrosoft.com (from livejournal.com)]

(hm, I can't remember /many/ of the things we did at school. Tom's Midnight Garden.. that must have been first year. A Midsummer Night's Dream (first year), Merchant of Venice (third year), Macbeth (GCSE) ... something in between? Animal Farm, Jane Eyre at GCSE - did we do nothing American while the other set did? War poetry ... my sister read the Crucible. My second year is, apparently, a blank. If we read anything I have apparently forgotten it completely.)

[sphyg.livejournal.com]

JOOI, have you seen the film?

[pizza.maircrosoft.com (from livejournal.com)]

We didn't read it at school. Would I like it?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I did. But I'm completely sucky at predicting who else will.

[sillytrippy.livejournal.com]

I loved it at school, maybe I should read it again and see how I look at it now.

On the final point, I'd never considered that it might not have been true. In part the literal/simple reading, but it doesn't really seem like much comfort over the guards having just shot him. IIRC he was riddled with enough bullets that it wasn't just to stop him escaping, or am I misremembering that?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think that's what they said.

[scribb1e.livejournal.com]

I've never read the book, but I have seen this :-)

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KevzcHUUKAY

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

:)

On the other hand, I now have to repeat to myself "I will not read YouTube comments" a hundred times.

"Am i the only one who visioned this exactly as this was shown.eventhough i slept through the entire book this is exactly what i saw in my head.except the pirates where kitties that only flew on emo carpets and shot cookies out but like fat cookies with aids"

"The first 5 seconds of this video are true about the book...the rest well.......TOTALLY RANDOM XD"

"this video is so stupid but so funny!!" "cunt"

"wait not presidents, i meant volcanoes. LOL"

I mean, seriously. One comment in ten is capitalized in the first letter, and one in twenty capitalized in the first letter of every sentence. Is there some actual filter that prevents capitalisation on youtube? :)

[scribb1e.livejournal.com]

lol youtube comments r responisble fr 9/10 cases of high blood pressure. teh internets r full of peepl who's aim in life is to wind u up

i wants teh kitties flying on emo carpets over volcanoews shooting bioweapon cookies at presidents. lolz

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ack. Bad woman :)

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

We read it in third year, and watched the film and everything. I've noticed a mild trend for the name 'Atticus' recently, which I can only assume is due to people like us who read it at school.

Not sure about the other questions, but the innocent explanation for Mayella's question never even occurred to me. Sorry.


(Other things we read that year include Julius Caesar, with all the Friends, Romans, Countrymen and ears and Silas Marner. Not noticing a great number of baby Silases, but then the book is older.)

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

I never read it at school. We read a book called "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" instead, which I've never heard of since, and which no one else seems to have heard of either. It feels a little bit like someone thought "Hmm, if I write a novel about race relations in the South in roughly the same era as TKaM, maybe I'll get on the GCSE syllabus too."

I read TKaM about five years ago and liked it. I should probably read it again, because I don't remember it that well, as is often the case with things I've only read once.

Jem and Scout make a snowman out of mud and a thin coating of snow. I was told that was a metaphor, but obstinately refused to listen. What do you think? If so, which metaphor?
I don't remember that incident in the book. From what you describe, it seems to be fairly clearly saying something about race, but I don't know exactly what. Context might help.
There are racist insults like "coconut" and "Oreo", meaning a black person "acting white", i.e. they look black but are white on the inside. So the snowman could represent someone with white skin who "acts black" or feels empathy with black people. Maybe Atticus? I don't remember enough to say.

[ravingglory.livejournal.com]

I read "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry". I don't think it was for school though. I think my mom just read it to me. I was around ten at the time. It made fairly big impression on me though. (Of course I also grew up in the states)

Now that I think about it it's kinda a "lets shock the kids so the understand that racism was bad" book. But hey it worked on me.

Jem and Scout make a snowman out of mud and a thin coating of snow

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I can't remember much more about the snowman. Basically, they make it. At first it's a caricature of Mr Avery, and then Atticus asks them to change it, and Jem borrows Miss Maudie's sheers and hat for it. And then it melts :)

Insults, yeah. I think my favourite was "banana", "yellow on the outside, white on the inside, and bent". I can't remember quite what was suggested at the time, but it could be:

* A white person with a core sympathetic to the black community, eg. Atticus
* A white person who preferred "acted black" except for being rich, ie. Mr. Dolphus Raymond
* A black person with a veneer of "acting white", eg. Calpurnia
* A black person forced to accept the white community's standards, eg. Tom Robinson
* A superficially respectable community, but with racism under the surface.

The juxtaposition of those disturb me, but a case could be made for all. But that could either mean it's an interesting metaphor, or I'm reading too much into it.

Re: Jem and Scout make a snowman out of mud and a thin coating of snow

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

FWIW, I looked it up on google. The top ten hits all agree that it is important symbolism, although all ascribe a different combinations of meanings to it. Ones I missed: that skin colour is superficial; that hiding your skin colour can't work (since the detail of the the mud showing through); the future coming together of black and white people.

Re: Jem and Scout make a snowman out of mud and a thin coating of snow

[andrewducker]

I'd say it was "We need the black people to make things actually work, but then we put a thin veneer of white folks over the top, to make it fit our prejudices and expectations."

Re: Jem and Scout make a snowman out of mud and a thin coating of snow

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like that one :)

[simont]

"Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" [...] which no one else seems to have heard of either

<raises hand>

Not, I confess, that I can remember anything at all about it; but then that hardly sets it above most other stuff I read in school English lessons. The only texts I can remember anything more than the title of were Lord of the Flies and a couple of the usual-suspect Shakespeare plays, and in the latter case that's probably only because you hear of the same plays everywhere else and absorb the plots by osmosis. (Though LotF I did genuinely like and have since gone out and bought a copy to re-read for pleasure, which I think makes it actually unique among things I encountered in English lessons.)

[rjw76]

I have to admit, I'd also never even considered an innocent explanation for Mayella's comment. Although the 14 year old me was about as cynical as the 25 year old :)

I'd taken Tom's death approximately literally- assumed he had indeed got desperate and tried to run, and then had the guards take altogether too much joy in bringing him down. That said, I'm not sure it matters- part of what I like about things being left ambiguous is that the reader gets to fill in the details in their own head.

And on that note, perhaps it's time I made myself read TKAM again. I haven't been able to, not because I not only killed but dissected and preserved all the bits of the mockingbird in little jars, but because it reminds me of my most hated teacher...

[ravingglory.livejournal.com]

This was read out loud to me by my actor Honorary Grandfather when I was a kid. In retrospect it seems like a hard book for a kid, but I loved it then.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I had thought I read this when I was about ten, but after reading it (again?) this summer I think not, because I was pathologically shy up to seventeen or so, and I would not have forgotten the intensity of the identification I know I would have felt with Boo Radley.

[kyte-fitzrimble.livejournal.com]

I had to read it at school and loved it anyway, and I think that that was one of the few times that analysing a book made it all the more interesting for me.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ooh. I'm glad it did work.