Saturday, August 4, 2007

To kill a mockingbird


There is just one kind of Folks. Folks.

This one line best describes the subject of the novel. Tho to add that there is much more to it is a understatement. Well, the novel is set in a period in America when colour discrimination was still prevalent. (the story is set in 1930s). And you can imagine wat the story would be like.

But what affetcted me the most was not the plot but the charecterisations and hence i am vying to write about it. The charecter of Atticus Finch is the one that touched me the most. Atticus comes across as a very noble human , a fine individual and a benign and a loving father. He made me feel like look upto him with love and reverence due to a father that both jem and scout feel as well.

Ther are a few beautiful lines in the novel that i would like to share with you, with due courtesy to Harper Lee.

The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience. :This best describes Atticus' attitude towards the society.
And these, his way of grooming his children:
Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I've tried to live so I can look squarely back at him.
When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness' sake.But don't make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles them.

Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they're not attracting attention with it.

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.
His preaching:
Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.
Jem:"Atticus says cheating a black man is ten times worse than cheating a white."
Atticus as loved by other charecters:
Didn't you know your daddy's the best shot in this county?

...there r some men in this world , who r born to do our unpleasant jobs for us,..... ur father is one of them...
He can do plenty of things... He can make somebody's will so airtight you can't break it. You count your blessings and stop complaining, both of you. Thank your stars he has the sense to act his age.
You jus want to take these lines with u as long as u live. So very beautifully written and scripted into dialogues and into the story they are... So very well behaved is Atticus that you want to treasure everything that is said by and of him...Thanx to Harper lee for having given us a chance to meet such a charecter in our lifetime.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just found that harper lee is female. I always thought the person was male. She dropped her first name for the novel?

Anonymous said...

Have you read Truman Capote's books? I read that Nelle and Truman have based some of their book's characters on each other.