Boo-log Lives Next Door

The song I chose for chapters 21-25 is “Fix You” by Coldplay. I thought that this song was really appropriate for more than just the unjust and brutal death of Tom Robinson, but also Atticus’ attempts to convince an obstinate jury and Jem who now feels as if all of Maycomb’s citizens are cruel for sending an innocent man to death. The song, “Fix You”, is a song dedicated to the people who become broken after enduring such trials. Tom Robinson is an innocent black man that is being sent to death and is later brutally killed after seventeen shots after being convicted by a jury that refuses to let a black man win. Atticus is a man that finds himself in the impossible task of convincing said jury to rule in favor of a black man. Jem is just a boy who now realizes how the world really is, a harsh reality to face for such a young person. I think these trials each of the characters face makes them stronger in the end and they have a new strength after overcoming each hurdle.

Life is crazy, isn’t it? After all, just by growing up, people’s perspective of the world starts to change. When we’re kids, we sort out the world into two types of people: good and bad. And how we differentiate between the two is good = the people that follows what our parents teach us, and bad = the people who don’t. But that gets shattered as we get older and we experience more. Like Jem, we start to lose that innocent look at life. Jem, who is just a kid, sees how different the world is when they become “bad”. To him, the entirety of Maycomb County is now cruel and evil. They’ve done the unspeakable; they have sent an innocent man to jail and to be later strapped to a chair and electricuted. However, let’s pretend we are some average Maycomb citizen… let’s be Stephanie Crawford. To us (as Stephanie Crawford), this is a rightful sentence for a black man that has been accused and convicted of raping a white woman. Look at how split people are when it comes to topics like abortion or capital punishment. Every person gets set on their own belief system, and whoever tries to defy our belief system suddenly becomes bad. We can’t really classify anyone as all bad, we end up learning. Jem’s just getting the scrape of how life really is. Now he knows that not everyone is a good, perfect person.

Reality is harsh and cruel. We end up changing our thoughts of what is good and what is bad. We learn how people and life really is; and it definitely isn’t all rainbows and gummy bears. Hey, Jem and everyone that reads this, welcome to reality.

During the trial, it truly became apparent on how great Atticus is. In chapters leading up to the trial, Atticus holds his head up high, refusing to give in to the prejudices other town citizens hold against Tom Robinson. I thought “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor captured this about Atticus. In the first stanza of the song, it goes:

 ”Went the distance, now I’m back on my feet
Just a man and his will to survive.”

This lyric connects to my idea of Atticus, because he did go the distance by taking on this controversial and possibly unwinnable case. And despite how we perceive Atticus knowing that he’s a gentleman that knows his way around a gun, he really is just a man that is here to prove his client’s innocence. Similarly other parts of the song can correlate to how difficult this fight really is. Like I said before, this case is practically unwinnable. There has never been a case where a black man against a white, where the black man won. However, during the trial, Atticus attacks the witnesses and against the odds, gives a good bout, one that could possibly win this case.

I have seen plenty of posts all about Atticus. After all, in To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch is one of the characters that truly personifies the book; he’s a kind gentlemen that chooses not to discriminate blacks and whites. The fact that Atticus treats colored people with the same respect as whites is already an amazing trait in a novel that takes place during the time of the Great Depression, especially in the South. Then we also know that Atticus is a great shot, “One-Shot Finch”, and an excellent father to Scout and Jem. And in these chapters, we learn what an amazing lawyer Atticus really is. As Heck Tate is being examined by Atticus, Atticus takes great notice to what the officer says. Something so irrelevant as the fact that the right side of Mayella Ewell’s face was the side primarily injured suddenly turns into an important fact that a left-handed person would have had to create most of her facial injuries. By remembering that fact, Atticus leads to the conclusion that Bob Ewell, a left-handed man, may have been the one to inflict the injuries, not Tom Robinson, a right-handed person. He uses his intelligence to his advantage; when he interviews Mayella, he gains information by first starting off simple and finally attacking the nineteen-year-old with questions. Can anyone honestly say, especially at Atticus’ age, that they could remember such small details or evaluate a situation so accurately as to get vital information to show some prospect at winning an unwinnable case? It is no doubt that Atticus Finch is a great man, and hopefully, the evidence Atticus thoughtfully presented will win Tom Robinson’s case.

The song, “The Last, the Lost, the Least” by Relient K, describes the current situation in Maycomb, Alabama well. The first stanza can correlate to how the white people in Maycomb live in privilege and look down on blacks. They push them at the farthest from their minds, even when the blacks are in bad condition (for example, the church that the Calpurnia’s congregation has to go to is run-down and used by other Maycomb-ers as a place to play poker). Instead, most of the whites in Maycomb just worry about themselves. The chorus is pretty similar to how Atticus defends everyone, including the last, the lost, and the least. Atticus is risking his life against the lynch mob in order to defend a man he believes is innocent, even if he has no money and is a “nigger”.

One of the lyrics in the song is “Step into a spacious place where pride and right will give way to the least of these to know the face of who a man can be”. This is exactly what Atticus is fighting for. He wants the people of Maycomb to drop their stupid pride of how whites are better than blacks and blacks are always the guilty ones, and look past that to the truth.

In chapter 14, Jem and Scout get a surprise visit from Dill after mistaking him to be a snake under Scout’s bed. Simply put it, Dill ran away. In the time of the Great Depression, running away wasn’t too difficult. Compare it to nowadays; there are no computers, no missing persons report, no news. However, the difficulty to successfully runaway doesn’t bug me. What bugs me is how similar Dill’s situation is to many other kids’ in the present. After talking to Atticus about Dill, Scout finally hears why Dill even left his home in the first place. In the beginning, Scout thought he was living a happy life down in Meridian; then she finds out the truth that it wasn’t all happy boat building.

Dill explains to Scout how his new father, his family, lost interest in him. Things ended up better without him; his parents wanted nothing to do with him. As much as Scout thinks this is a strange reason to leave your home, that kind of thinking happens more often. Kids become forgotten and families move on without them. As far away as the time of the book is to us, there are some things that remain the same.

I chose Better Days by The Goo Goo Dolls, because it essentially sums up what I believe Atticus believes in. Atticus has seen past what most of the town perceives is right; blacks are lesser people than whites. He goes so far as to stake his entire career and reputation on the line to defend Tom Robinson, a black man, against harsh accusations. This is all because he wants the equality and equal treatment that blacks deserve. The song seems to match up with these ideals; it basically describes stopping all of the fighting between people that is brought through differences. Perhaps by Atticus defending Tom Robinson, other people will also get to see that blacks are the same as whites and better days will come in Maycomb.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, it’s easy to grasp the fact that times are really different. How people treat each other is different. Take for example, A-TECH, and how we are a “community” of different races, yet we all get along just fine. We make friends with people of different ethnicities and backgrounds easily. However, the treatment people get in TKAM is truly atrocious. Calpurnia, a woman not affected by her time, offers to bring Jem and Scout to her church in Atticus’ place. The moment Jem and Scout arrive at the building, they are immediately met with opposition. A woman is in shock that white children would be going to the same church as blacks. People treated it as a taboo. How crazy is that? Scout and Jem almost left, because it was so difficult to be there. Luckily, there’s still some good in the world. The Reverend was welcoming to both Scout and Jem, introducing them as guests. And of course, Calpurnia stood up for the Finch siblings by explaining that we’re all worshiping the same God after all.

People always find their extreme, the opposite end of the spectrum of them. Even Scout notices the difference between whites and blacks just by the way they talk. However, it would be great that if in the story, people could see the same way as Calpurnia or the reverend. There’s no difference in any of us. We’re all human beings. So why should anyone be treated less than that?

The Middle by Jimmy Eat World reflects the change in the story in Scout’s life. In chapter nine, Scout is confronted with Cecil Jacobs who makes a comment about Atticus’ job. When she questions Atticus about it, her father tells her the truth. He does defend colored people and although he knows how his actions are perceived, Atticus refuses to do otherwise. In doing so, he tells Scout to not listen to what other people say and to hold her head up high. I thought this song reflected how even in the face of adversity, the entire Finch family continues to follow what they believe in, not just Scout. For Scout, she faces the people at school like Cecil Jacobs and during Christmas, Francis. So many people are against blacks in the time period (they’re all the same), but like in the lyrics, “it’s good enough to be yourself, it doesn’t matter if it’s good enough for someone else”. Hopefully, like in the song lyrics, everything will end up alright for the Finch family.

Kids do things without thinking. After all, there is nothing to think about. In chapter 5, Scout, Dill, and Jem continue their adventure to discover more about the mysterious Boo Radley, even going so far as to write a letter to the man and sneak it through a side window. Soon after, Atticus discovers his children’s doings giving them a stern lecture. The lecture he gave Scout, Dill, and Jem is a lecture people tend to forget as they get older. What people do is their own business. When people want to talk, they’ll talk. We should respect and treat others in the way we want to respected and treated. Just as much as people in real life tend to forget those lessons, people in the book forget those lessons as well. The reason why Scout, Dill, and Jem choose to explore the Boo Radley mystery is because the rest of the town spreads rumors of things they don’t even understand. Miss Maudie even explains that one-fourth of what they heard is all from Stephanie Crawford. I wonder if Stephanie Crawford would like a rumor spreading around the town that she was some monster that was confined to her home to prevent her from ravaging through Maycomb. I wonder if a lot of people in this world that treat people badly or spread horrible rumors would like it if those actions were turned against them too.