Harper Lee
sets up suspense before the climax (Jem breaking his arm), in chapter
twenty-eight by craftily using effective details. The first effective detail
was choosing to have the night be Halloween night. Halloween itself creates an
aura of spookiness, which leaves everyone jumpy. So when Mr. Ewell is following
Jem and Scout they think that they are just jumpy since it is the eerie
holiday. The second effective detail was her stress on the type of weather
there was that night. “The weather was unusually warm…there was no moon.” (341)
The weather description creates an eerie foreshadow for climax later in the
chapter upcoming climax later in the chapter. Scout and Jem’s walk is also in
the pitch-black night making it hard to see one another or tell who someone is
from a distance. Their inability to see behind themselves in the dark eerie night becomes an important factor in the struggle between the
Finch children and Mr. Ewell. The kids cannot see their pursuer because of the
darkness and Mr. Ewell could not aim as well with his murder weapon with no
visible target. The next key detail in her suspenseful set-up is adding in
Cecil Jacobs. Cecil Jacobs jumps out from behind the tree in front of the
Radley’s, scaring the daylights out of Jem and Scout. The readers may not
notice at first why the appearance of Cecil is deliberate because the scaring blends back in with the Halloween spookiness theme. His scare was placed in the
chapter deliberately because when Scout and Jem later hear Mr. Ewell’s footsteps
crunching they crush it off, as they think it is just ol’ Cecil trying to scare
them again. The next effective details Harper Lee adds to the chapter have to do
with Scout's performance in the pageant.
The first part of the pageant is just Miss. Merriweather
droning on and on. Scout in her awkward large wiry ham costume settles down in a
somewhat position and waits. The speech of Miss. Merriweather is so long Scout
quickly falls asleep. When Miss. Merriweather calls Scout’s queue Scout does
not her immediately as she is dozing. “Pork…pork? Po-ork! When nothing
materialized she yelled, ‘Pork’…she caught me backstage and told me I had
ruined her pageant…” (346 and 347) Scout is so embarrassed she stays in her
bulky costume, to hide, and asks Jem to hang back and not leave with the crowd
so she will not have to have many people confront her on her performance. Scout’s actions from her
embarrassment fit in with the situation but are also effective details as they play
big roles in the result of the struggle. When Heck Tate examines Scout’s wrecked costume
afterwards and sees that it has a large knife slice in it. If Harper Lee hadn’t
added that Scout was wearing her costume she would have been killed or been
more seriously injured. If Scout hadn’t
even been embarrassed in the first place Jem and Scout would not have been a
single walking target for Mr. Ewell. The kids could have gotten a ride or been
mixed in with the herd, unreachable. Harper Lee adds multiple effective details
throughout the chapter to fully setup the climax, the dramatic scene of Jem
breaking his arm, which the reader has been waiting for the whole novel long.
Q’s: Do you feels as though
this was a satisfying climax? Why or why not?
Why do you think Mr. Ewell
targeted the kids and not Atticus?
Well, I personally feels that this was a satisfying climax because it brings out the mysterious Boo Radley whom the kids had wondered about throughout the book, breaks Jem's arm which we have wondered about throughout the book, and kills Bob Ewell which everyone should have been hoping for throughout the book. The reason Bob targeted the kids and not Atticus was because A. If he killed the kids Atticus would live the rest of his life with the guilt of their death all because he did what was right, and B. Because, as he said on page 360, "Low-down skunk with enough liquor in him to make him brave enough to kill children. He'd never have met you face to face." This shows that he needed to get drunk just to be brave enough to kill the children, which means when he threatened Atticus he knew that if anything he would have to hurt him through his kids, because he knew that he was too scurred to try and kill Atticus.
ReplyDeleteThe main reason why Mr. Ewell hurt Atticus' kids is because they are more important to him them himself. His kids is what Atticus lives for. He uses the kids to spread his ideas through generations to come, specifically the idea that it is okay to stand out from the crowd. If you look back in the novel really every scene helps Atticus teach his kids a new lesson. For instance, Atticus bringing Aunt Alexandra into the house. In my opinion Scout would have matured on her own without Aunt Alexandra, but Aunt Alexandra allowed Scout and Jem to view up close and personal a "perfect southern woman". In that case Atticus is teaching the kids to respect your ideas even if they might be influenced by others. I think Atticus would much rather have Mr. Ewell kill him than to kill Jem and Scout.
ReplyDeleteHow do you think Atticus would react if one or both of the kids died? What other lessons does Atticus teach indirectly?
I thought that chapter eight was very engaging and suspenseful even before the children are attacked. Harper Lee puts in so many details (which Margaret explains) that really tell the reader that an extremely important event is about to happen in the story. From the details Harper Lee puts in the chapter, I am able to feel the eerie-ness of the Halloween night, and I can imagine being in Scout's restrictive costume and how that would affect her ability to move as she normally would. I thought that even though we say that the only climax is when Jem's arm is broken through the struggle with Mr. Ewell, I happen to think that there is more than one climax to these chapters. I think that at the end of chapter 29, when Scout says, "Hey Boo," this is also a climax because it was more shocking to me than the attack was. I expected the attack because we knew Jem had to break the arm somehow, but I was not expecting for Boo to come out in this way.
ReplyDeleteWhy did Boo save the Finch children when Mr. Ewell was attacking them?
How did Boo know that Mr. Ewell was going to attack them? Did he have prior knowledge about this attack?
What was Boo's relationship with Bob Ewell?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI was very satisfied with the climax because I was expecting Jem to break his arm some normal kid way like falling out of a tree, but this was exciting and a little scary. It was much more than what I was expecting but I now think I should have expected it. Harper Lee was very clever to make all the details just the way she wanted. I agree that Mr. Ewell attacked the kids to make Atticus feel guilty, but I also think that there wouldn't be an opportunity like this one for Mr. Ewell to attack Atticus when he can't see him and fight back. Harper Lee also makes the reader want to keep reading at the end of the chapter by making Scout meet Arthur "Boo" Radley, and by mentioning that Mr. Ewell was found dead making me think it was Boo.
ReplyDeleteI think that Boo saved the Finch children because he is simply a nice person and couldn't sit back when he heard them getting attacked. And I don't think that Boo had prior knowledge and he just heard their screams for help. I don't think that Boo has any relationship with Bob Ewell because Boo doesn't seem to have a relationship with anybody in the town.
--
Can you find an other cliff hangers in the novel? any that have to do with Boo? Were you expecting a climax like this one? Do you think Bob Ewell would have been able to execute an attack like this one on Atticus?
In response to Danny, I do think that Bob Ewell could have successfully harmed Atticus if he was in his kids position. Atticus predicted early on that Bob had gotten out all of his anger when he threatened him publicly: "I thought he got it all out of him the day he threatened me." (361) Although he also mentioned that he could have come after him as well, throughout the course of the novel, Atticus never seemed afraid. Maybe he was on the inside, but he never showed it. Therefore, I can imagine that he'd be surprised to some degree if he was thrown to the ground in the middle of a moonless night. One thing would lead to another, and I can't imagine Atticus winning the fight. It was mentioned earlier in the novel that Atticus also was getting older, and that he refused to play football with Jem sometimes due to his lack of physicality. I do think Bob would have executed on his task.
ReplyDeleteI think it was smart, though, of Bob to go after the children. Obviously, I don't like that he did it, but knowing Atticus, he would have been much less affected by the situation if it was him who was attacked. His most prized possessions are his kids, as he dedicates his life to educating them on his morals. It was relatively clever of Bob to perform in the way he did, and I'm surprised that Atticus did not pick up on the possible plan.
Do you think that Bob made the right choice? Ultimately, though he died, do you think Bob got what he wanted?
Bob made the right choice for what he intended to do. Jem and Scout are his life, so getting rid of them would kill Atticus. Harper Lee made Bob go for the kids because it highlights Scouts coming of age. When Scout is under attack she is thinking about Jem. When Boo comes out is the most important part. Finally seeing Boo shows that Scout's childhood fantasies are over. She is now grown up and can worry about real issues.
ReplyDeleteBob Ewell's death brings a sense of finality with it. By eliminating this character, Harper Lee closes the drama surrounding the trial. Also, she brings the childhood adventures of Jem and Scout to an end by finally revealing Boo Radley. With closure on both of these huge pieces of Scout's life, she can move forward as a more mature person. Arthur (Boo) and Mr. Ewell were both in the book to teach Scout important lessons about empathy and prejudice, respectively. Now that both storylines have been finished, it shows that Scout has learned the lessons that Bob and Boo were in the book to teach.
ReplyDeleteHas Scout fully matured even though she is only in third grade?
After reading To Kill a Mockingbird I noticed that even though there is racism still it is still a big improvement. At least we walk up to people of a different race and talk to them. We are able to put these facts behind after we get to know people. A trial like the one Atticus had will not happen these days. When Helen fainted Harper Lee showed that she had given up on society. IT took a couple years, but she shouldn't have given up.
ReplyDelete