To Kill A Mockingbird book report. class 705

Lucie Pascarosa                     705                   9/23/12    SPOILER ALERT!!

          I recently finished the amazing book, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. The book is told from the perspective of a 9 year old girl living in Alabama in the 1940's - 50's. The book is about this girl named Scout experiencing her father, who was a lawyer, representing a black man in court, who was accused of raping a 19 year old woman. The man was innocent, of course, which made the whole story a mystery. The question was, who did? Read more to find out the true meaning of the story.

         The title of the story is To kill a Mockingbird. A few times in the story they mention "it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." I think this is a symbol for the rest of the story, which is about the case. I think it symbolizes the jury refusing to respect and honor the black man's word. In that case, I would say that it is wrong to judge people by the color of their skin, or anything that is skin deep. In the cover of the book there is a tree with different items in a knot in the trunk. In the story, they were given to Scout and her brother from Boo Radley, the mysterious person who lived across the street. After they took the three items, he sealed the hole up with cement. I thought that symbolized the hope that Scout and her brother Jem had that their father was going to win the trial, but then, the judge sealed away their hope and sent the man to jail.

          Unfortunately, not every story has a happy ending. But you do get some closure at the end of the book. I thought that the end was very sad, and I was disappointed with the author, but I understood the reason why she made that decision. What decision do you ask? The decision to send the blank man, who was wrongly accused of murder, to jail. In jail, the man knew he was fast, and knew he wasn't guilty, so he ran for the fence and tried to climb it, but the guards shot him over ten times before he got the chance. Although you may think this is about the end of the story, I was surprised to find out when I was reading it, it wasn't. at the beginning of the book it says that when Scout was nine, her brother broke his arm in two places. This is how it happened: The father of the woman who claimed to be raped actually just beat her! He made up that story because he saw his daughter trying to seduce the black man, who was just being friendly and helping out with the yard work. I thought this was horrible, as the man did nothing wrong, and was even worried before he got arrested because he was afraid he was going to get caught doing nothing. Anyway, back to the first story; Scout and her brother had just gotten back from school and it was late at night. they thought they heard someone following them, but they assumed it was just their prankster friend. All of a sudden they were jumped, and attacked. Scout blacked out and Jem got his arm broken by the woman's father. A day or two later, she finds out that he somehow stabbed him self incidentally. i think this whole paragraph was definitely the major parts of the story.

          I think the moral of that story was that you should never judge people by their color, sexuality, or gender. I also think that the author wanted to make a lasting impression on the reader, and she definitely did for me.