The start of the trial of Tom Robinson

In the trial of Tom Robinson, Harper Lee builds suspense in a very powerful way. Whatever tension there is is already doubled by Jems reactions to everything that happens. This excites Scout and therefore makes the situation more exciting for the reader. For example on page 173 when the heat rises in the court discussion "Jem’s hand, which was resting on the balcony rail, tightened around it. He drew in his breath suddenly. Glancing below, I saw no corresponding reaction, and wondered if Jem was trying to be dramatic."  Jem’s tense and exaggerated and tense reaction means that although Scout does not still fully understand what is happening in the trial at that moment she is alert and greedy for more information, as is the reader.

Also the fact that all of the "negroes" are sitting behind Dill, Jem and Scout adds to the tension because it shows the true injustice of the situation, where children who are maybe not even supposed to be there have better seats that the potential friends and family of Tom Robinson. The fact that Atticus is the children’s father also has a very powerful affect when adding tension as their wanting for him to do well and not shame himself is evident through the way that they pay so much attention to the entire goings on in the trial. When  Atticus asks “Mr Ewell, can you read and write?” his air of mysteriousness grips each and every person in the court room and this builds the suspense as it appears to be  a spark of hope  for Tom Robinson, which before that moment had not appeared to exist.

Revision Questions

This week I decided to do some revision questions, these will help me when I am reflecting back on To Kill A Mockingbird but I also hope that any others working on this book might find them useful too. The revision questions will be based on chapters 9, 10 as we have recently finished part 1 and these are the most recent chapters we've been studying.

Chapter 9;
1. How does uncle Jack differ to Atticus and how do the Children react to this?
2. What does Scouts reaction to her aunts comments about how she should be behaving tell us about her character, also how is this different to the way she reacts to her cousin when he taunts her.
3. Why do you think Scout disobeys Atticus' orders about keeping her temper? And how do you think the guilt affects her?
4. Uncle Jack gets on extremely well with his niece and nephew, so why do you think he says to Atticus, "I shall never marry, Atticus...I might have children".

Chapter 10;
1.How do you think the taunting at school affects Scout? Especially when she is having doubts about her fathers abilities now that he is 'old'.
2.Miss Maudie tell the children how lucky they are that he is the age that he is, do you think she is surprised by their reaction to this?
3. Calpurnia tries in vain to warn the Radley house about the mad dog, what does this say about her character?
4. Jem seems to understand Atticus' reasoning for not telling them of his talent more than Scout, what affect do you think this will have on her and he thoughts on Atticus?

Here is a link to a useful revision website;
http://englishtutorhome2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/gcse-model-exam-answers-to-kill.html

Oh The Shame

I completed a piece of free writing in my English lesson recently. The instruction were to write for ten minutes about a experience where we had disappointed an adult in our younger years. We also were told to include five of our 'favourite words' and this spiced up the writing somewhat. Free writing is not my strong point but this is what I came up with;

There was one time when I was in year two that I still cannot seem to get over. I was always thought of as good and well-behaved at primary school, but this act could have changed this all. We were doing a project on cats and each person had to bring in a toy cat of their own. One girl had quite a sassy little cat with real-looking fur which she hoisted on to the table. I then seized this and without thinking pulled the little cat away from its wicker basket it sat in. Big mistake. I had tried to hide my faux pas by shoving the cat back in and pretending nothing had ever happened. This bubble of guilt has never left me and I wish I had said at the time that it was I who broke the sassy cat.

First Impressions

When I first started to read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee I have to admit I was unsure what to expect because of the way the book started out. The way Scout wrote, if I had not read that she was five,  I would have thought she was at least 15. I also thought she was a boy until her brother, Jem claimed that he has to watch out for his little 'sister'. I like how Jem and Scout had a mutual understanding in the way that they spent their time together. They would quite happily play for hours, but at some points Jem would want to be alone and Scout knew that this was because he missed their mother, who died before Scout could know her. This showed Scout's maturity but also how vulnerable both these children were.

When they meet Dill I found his character slightly irritating. I knew that he would eventually come between them in some way as they grew up. He looked to Jem and this made Scout jealous but he also was 'engaged' to Scout and this would maybe have made Jem jealous too, obviously not of Dill as Scout is his sister, but of the attention that Scout could potentially be getting.

I was also intrigued by Atticus's character. He seems to be so relaxed about what his two children get up to and from this I felt that you could sense the loss and emptiness that he is left with after loosing his wife. At the same time however, he has a quiet, protectiveness over them which would only come from a father who deeply cared. His parenting methods seem to be stern but fair and also it was interesting how they call him 'Atticus' rather than Dad or something similar.