A Mockingbird Just Sings

(Scout and Atticus Finch)

I watched To Kill a Mockingbird in my English class the other day. We were then asked to write a response to the movie, to make connections between the movie and its title, small town life, or any connections we saw between the movie and today.

Here's my response:

To Kill a Mockingbird was, first of all, an interesting movie. Most of what I remember about the movie has to do with Tom Robinson's trial and Scout and Jem's skirmish with Mr. Ewell. Tom Robinson was an African-American on trial for raping a girl. He was found guilty because the jury was most likely a little bit racist. Nowadays, however, it would be much different: Tom would have been given fair trial, and he would have had a jury of his peers.

Tom was later shot and killed when he tried to run from where they were keeping him. I think that this sent a shock through my classmates in me; we all believed that he was innocent and that the police officers would never dare to do something like that.

When Mr. Ewell tried to kill Jem and Scout, Boo saved them. Mr. Ewell was found "with a kitchen knife under his ribs." I'm pretty sure that Mr. Ewell was the plaintiff in Tom's trial. When he and his daughter took the stand against Tom, I was sure that Mr. Ewell was beating his daughter, and that that was the reason for her black eye and other bruises.

At the beginning of the movie, Atticus Finch (Jem and Scout's father) said that you should never kill a mockingbird because they just sing, and they don't harm the other birds. He told Jem and Scout that blue jays kicked the other birds' fledglings out of the nest, doing harm. In this case, when Boo saved them (and most likely shoved the kitchen knife under Mr. Ewell's ribs) he became the mockingbird. When Mr. Ewell beat his daughter and tried to kill Jem and Scout, he became the blue jay. I think that this is how the story relates to the title.

That's really all I have...

Bye!

~Cassie