Having Guests
p.32 That boys yo' comp'ny
Diplomacy
p.59 You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...
p.40 Sometimes it's better to bend the law a little in special cases. In your case the law remains rigid.
Fairness
p.41 Are you going to take out your disapproval on his children?
School
p.43 Project...Unit...Group Dynamics...Good Citizenship... but as I inshed sluggishly along the treadmill of the Maycomb County School System... 12 years of unrelieved boredom.
p.45 ...authorities released us early
Romance
p.55 Dill was becoming something of a trial...asked me...to marry him, promptly forgot about it. He staked me out, marked me as his property, said I was the only girl he would ever love, then he neglected me.
Weeds
p. 56 ...nut grass....Second Battle of the Marne
Being Teased
p.58 first person she thought about teasing and the best defense....was a spirited defense.
Friendship
p.59 ...never told on us, never played cat and mouse with us, not interested in our private lives...
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Of Finches and Mockingbirds
The first time I recall reading Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird I was in the back seat of a four-door sedan barrelling down the highway towards Mexico City. I was flanked in the back seat by my two youngest sisters. Let's see, if I was nearly 30 that would have made them nearly 23 and 20. Yes, I remember now. The only way I would have gone to Mexico was if I were in the company of fluent spanish speakers. One sister had recently returned from a health services mission in Argentina. In the front seat were my brother-in-law (who had served a mission in Central America) and my sister (who had served a mission in Spain). We had taken several books with us to read aloud as we traveled. This book was one of them.
I next read the book aloud to my tween and teenage daughters, just a year ago. Our small town library had provided free copies as a Big Read Humanities Grant selection. So, this month's reading was at least my third visit to the book. I kept a yellow highlighter in one hand, applying it liberally. I became completely immersed in Scout's comings and goings. Of course I knew what was going to happen. I anticipated Atticus's courtroom plea for human decencey, integrity, and the rule of law. I knew Tom Robinson would be a casualty to the ignorance, fear, and prejudice of his neighbors.
Neighbors. This story is about neighbors. This story is about neighbors making a difference. Neighbors hurting and neighbors helping. This story dispells the myth of rugged individualism and installs in its place the need for a community wielding faith, hope, and charity.
It is a story about abandonment and salvation.
Abandonment. Scout is motherless. Dill is fatherless. Mayella is motherless. Arthur is fatherless. Nearly all the significant adults in Scout's life are single. Each one is fighting a battle, of sorts. There is Atticus, holding tenaciously to integrity as the chief virtue he would instill in his children. There is Calpurnia, every bit the equal and even the better of the priveledged community in social graces, education, and insight into human character. There is Mrs. Dubose, a victim of the good intentions of medical attention which has addicted her to morphine. These and all the others not singled out here are bound by the expectations of society and using what ammunition they can to break the chains that bind them.
Ammunition. In this quiver are the arrows of determination (Mrs. Dubose), charity (Tom Robinson), cheerfulness (Miss Maudie), discipline (Calpurnia), humility (Atticus), repentance (Walter Clunningham), long suffering (Arthur Radley).
Chains. Links in that awful chain are pride and revenge (Bob Ewell), ignorance, poverty and abuse ( Mayella Ewell), conformity (Aunt Alexandra's guests), shallowness (Miss Caroline).
Atticus encouraged his children to try to see things through other's eyes-- to "walk in their shoes", as it were. Scout found herself wishing, while the jurors were deliberating, that the entire waiting crowd would concentrate on setting Tom Robinson free. Which is exactly why Harper Lee wrote this book. She wrote that Scout heard Jem say that "if enough people--a stadium full, maybe--were to concentrate on one thing, such as setting a tree afire in the woods, that the tree would ignite of its own accord." That, in a nutshell is how change comes about. That is how ideas take hold.
Salvation. Arthur Radley--quiet, alone, misunderstood, misrepresented, all but forgotten--watches. Watches kindnesses and cruelty, superstition and bravery, all the drama and dullness of an ordinary neighborhood in a forgotten corner of a nation in the throes of depression. Arthur "Boo" Radley hears a child's cry for help when all others are deaf to it. Arthur Radley, in his innocence, rights the wrong and saves the children of the scapegoat of Maycomb, Alabama.
We are the finches. Do we recognize those that are mockingbirds among us? Do we hear their song? Atticus reminded his children, "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." Scout noticed that the feeling in the courtroom during Tom Robinson's trial was "exactly the same as a cold February morning, when the mockingbirds were still." Mr. Underwood, (interesting name for a reporter--I wonder if Miss Lee composed her book on an Underwood typewriter), the newspaper editor figured it was a "sin to kill cripples, be they standing, sitting, or escaping. He likened Tom's death to the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children." And, at last, Scout observed that to drag Arthur Radley into the limelight would be "well, it'd be sort of like shootin' a mockingbird, wouldn't it?"
If I am to "get on with my life" I must get this essay monkey off my back. Scout's story is at peril of fading from the "back burner" of my mind into oblivian. What is Scout's message for me?
Scout is telling me that the pen is mightier than the sword. Is there a message I am to share? What is it and
how shall I tell it?
Scout is shouting to me about education-- the core phase of education, where one learns about good and bad, right and wrong--the guiding values and discipline phase of education. Lest I, the reader, miss this point she tells me on page 374 of 376 pages, "As I made my way home, I thought Jem and I would get grown but there wasn't much else left for us to learn, except possibly algebra." Am I equipping myself and my children with a grounded "Scout Style" foundation? Scout serves up diplomacy, fairness, friendship, hospitality, hypocrasy, misplaced guilt, optimism, self-discipline, standards, boundaries, dress and behavior, equality, grammar, courtesy, family honor, respect, parenting, expectations, welfare mentality, vocabulary, the power of unified thought (for good or ill), greatness, the rule of law, literacy, situational ethics, and folly, to name just a few.
Scout is challenging me to notice the details. She is a genius at observation and description. The Finch family, like mine "ran high to daughters". Scout found that she had unwittingly spent her tender years "wallowing illicitly in the daily papers". In her writing mentor Calpurnia's teaching "there was no sentimentality: I seldom pleased her and she seldom rewarded me." I am witness to childhood dares as Jem "treaded water at the gate". A looming shadow was "crisp as toast". At a crucial moment Scout "tarried in indecision a moment too long." Atticus was called to an emergency session of the state legislature as "the Governor was eager to scrape a few barnacles off the ship of state."
Scout is inviting me to write. She is showing me how to observe and record. She is suggesting I pay attention to those around me. She tells me I can send a love letter of gratitude to the uncelebrated heros of my existance.
Scout's world was everything my world is not. Her town was tired, sagged, moved slowly, crumbled. People shuffled, took their time, were in no hurry, yet had a vague optimism and trust in a president who assured them they had "Nothing to fear but fear itself". Her days were filled with routine contentment as she and her brother and their playmate spent the summer hours improving, fussing, and running through their familiar and time-worn list of dramas.
I am a benefactor of Harper Lee's courageous pen. My children are likewise indebted to her opening hearts to the fact that "most people are real nice when you finally see them."
I next read the book aloud to my tween and teenage daughters, just a year ago. Our small town library had provided free copies as a Big Read Humanities Grant selection. So, this month's reading was at least my third visit to the book. I kept a yellow highlighter in one hand, applying it liberally. I became completely immersed in Scout's comings and goings. Of course I knew what was going to happen. I anticipated Atticus's courtroom plea for human decencey, integrity, and the rule of law. I knew Tom Robinson would be a casualty to the ignorance, fear, and prejudice of his neighbors.
Neighbors. This story is about neighbors. This story is about neighbors making a difference. Neighbors hurting and neighbors helping. This story dispells the myth of rugged individualism and installs in its place the need for a community wielding faith, hope, and charity.
It is a story about abandonment and salvation.
Abandonment. Scout is motherless. Dill is fatherless. Mayella is motherless. Arthur is fatherless. Nearly all the significant adults in Scout's life are single. Each one is fighting a battle, of sorts. There is Atticus, holding tenaciously to integrity as the chief virtue he would instill in his children. There is Calpurnia, every bit the equal and even the better of the priveledged community in social graces, education, and insight into human character. There is Mrs. Dubose, a victim of the good intentions of medical attention which has addicted her to morphine. These and all the others not singled out here are bound by the expectations of society and using what ammunition they can to break the chains that bind them.
Ammunition. In this quiver are the arrows of determination (Mrs. Dubose), charity (Tom Robinson), cheerfulness (Miss Maudie), discipline (Calpurnia), humility (Atticus), repentance (Walter Clunningham), long suffering (Arthur Radley).
Chains. Links in that awful chain are pride and revenge (Bob Ewell), ignorance, poverty and abuse ( Mayella Ewell), conformity (Aunt Alexandra's guests), shallowness (Miss Caroline).
Atticus encouraged his children to try to see things through other's eyes-- to "walk in their shoes", as it were. Scout found herself wishing, while the jurors were deliberating, that the entire waiting crowd would concentrate on setting Tom Robinson free. Which is exactly why Harper Lee wrote this book. She wrote that Scout heard Jem say that "if enough people--a stadium full, maybe--were to concentrate on one thing, such as setting a tree afire in the woods, that the tree would ignite of its own accord." That, in a nutshell is how change comes about. That is how ideas take hold.
Salvation. Arthur Radley--quiet, alone, misunderstood, misrepresented, all but forgotten--watches. Watches kindnesses and cruelty, superstition and bravery, all the drama and dullness of an ordinary neighborhood in a forgotten corner of a nation in the throes of depression. Arthur "Boo" Radley hears a child's cry for help when all others are deaf to it. Arthur Radley, in his innocence, rights the wrong and saves the children of the scapegoat of Maycomb, Alabama.
We are the finches. Do we recognize those that are mockingbirds among us? Do we hear their song? Atticus reminded his children, "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." Scout noticed that the feeling in the courtroom during Tom Robinson's trial was "exactly the same as a cold February morning, when the mockingbirds were still." Mr. Underwood, (interesting name for a reporter--I wonder if Miss Lee composed her book on an Underwood typewriter), the newspaper editor figured it was a "sin to kill cripples, be they standing, sitting, or escaping. He likened Tom's death to the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children." And, at last, Scout observed that to drag Arthur Radley into the limelight would be "well, it'd be sort of like shootin' a mockingbird, wouldn't it?"
If I am to "get on with my life" I must get this essay monkey off my back. Scout's story is at peril of fading from the "back burner" of my mind into oblivian. What is Scout's message for me?
Scout is telling me that the pen is mightier than the sword. Is there a message I am to share? What is it and
how shall I tell it?
Scout is shouting to me about education-- the core phase of education, where one learns about good and bad, right and wrong--the guiding values and discipline phase of education. Lest I, the reader, miss this point she tells me on page 374 of 376 pages, "As I made my way home, I thought Jem and I would get grown but there wasn't much else left for us to learn, except possibly algebra." Am I equipping myself and my children with a grounded "Scout Style" foundation? Scout serves up diplomacy, fairness, friendship, hospitality, hypocrasy, misplaced guilt, optimism, self-discipline, standards, boundaries, dress and behavior, equality, grammar, courtesy, family honor, respect, parenting, expectations, welfare mentality, vocabulary, the power of unified thought (for good or ill), greatness, the rule of law, literacy, situational ethics, and folly, to name just a few.
Scout is challenging me to notice the details. She is a genius at observation and description. The Finch family, like mine "ran high to daughters". Scout found that she had unwittingly spent her tender years "wallowing illicitly in the daily papers". In her writing mentor Calpurnia's teaching "there was no sentimentality: I seldom pleased her and she seldom rewarded me." I am witness to childhood dares as Jem "treaded water at the gate". A looming shadow was "crisp as toast". At a crucial moment Scout "tarried in indecision a moment too long." Atticus was called to an emergency session of the state legislature as "the Governor was eager to scrape a few barnacles off the ship of state."
Scout is inviting me to write. She is showing me how to observe and record. She is suggesting I pay attention to those around me. She tells me I can send a love letter of gratitude to the uncelebrated heros of my existance.
Scout's world was everything my world is not. Her town was tired, sagged, moved slowly, crumbled. People shuffled, took their time, were in no hurry, yet had a vague optimism and trust in a president who assured them they had "Nothing to fear but fear itself". Her days were filled with routine contentment as she and her brother and their playmate spent the summer hours improving, fussing, and running through their familiar and time-worn list of dramas.
I am a benefactor of Harper Lee's courageous pen. My children are likewise indebted to her opening hearts to the fact that "most people are real nice
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Whiteboard Notations & Grand Argument Storymind Notes on TKAM
Two weeks ago I filled a white board with comments made during the conference call my sisters and father had after reading Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Here they are, in no particular order or significance...
exagerated characters
say-go-be-didn't
suck in your stomach and put some color on
rules of southern women
fringe people
It's not time to worry yet
embarrassed of her dad
tolerance
Daddy/Atticus parallels
weak excuses
side stories make it palatable to a Southern audience
not just an Uncle Tom's Cabin story
both a principle and issue book
careful observing of human nature
insight into human nature
that's just what happened to Joseph (archetype)
say so much with a little phrase
profiling
what is the "static" in our lives preventing us from hearing calls for help
background--literacy--how long your family's been reading
faulting Atticus (or ourselves) for allowing vulnerability
prejudice is pervasive
Civil Right's couldn't have happend before the Salk vaccine
social situations in the South are complex
Dill ran away because he wasn't needed (or didn't feel needed)
I led the discussion, beginning with a brief overview of the Grand Argument Story as explained by Tracy and Laura Hickman at a "Big Read" event I attended a year ago. They explained that there are four journeys in a story-- the Objective Journey, the Main Character Journey, the Impact Character Journey, and the Subjective Journey. Their engaging power-point lecture draws speculations and input from the audience. Eventually it is clear that in THIS story the Objective Journey is the trial of Tom Robinson. The entire town is interested in this event. This is a journey of prejudice. The Main Character Journey would be Scout's. We see the events through her eyes. The Impact Character Journey is Arthur Radley's (or Boo's). He impacts Scout the most. His influence is felt throughout the story (as suggested on the first page of the book). The Subjective Journey is that of both Scout and Boo--their story of overcoming their own prejudices and preconceptions.
I am not saying here that I necessarily agree with this. Some might say that Boo is a Christ archetype. Possibly more on that later.
Speaking of Character Archetypes, the Hickmans go on to explain the Drivers of the Story (or those that move the story forward) and the Passengers of the Story (or those that are taken along for the ride). The Drivers are the Protagonist (or hero), the Contagonist (the one with his or her own agenda, a manipulator, a puppet master), the Guardian (the protector, always weak), and the Antagonist (or the bad guy, as it were). The Passengers of the story are the Skeptic (disbelieving, questioning), the Reason (thinks everything through), the Emotion (feels deeply, acts according to feelings), and the Sidekick (hopeful, believing, faith). Now the fun begins. Who is who in this story? Here are the names: Tom Robinson, May Ella Ewell, Atticus, Bob Ewell, Jem, Scout, Arthur Radley, Dill, and Calpurnia. Now to plug them into their roles in the story. (I won't give away here all the fun the Hickman's have drawing the conclusions out of the audience).
I neglected to share the Mythological Cycle of the Journey Story (again as outlined by the Hickmans). First, the main character crosses a threshold (a point of no return or the first step which takes him or her into the unknown)--the "Threshold Crossing". A Helper comes. There is a "call to adventure". A "prize" is gained (or the person is changed, experiences character growth). The "threshold" is crossed again. This is the "Threshold Return". But this is not the end. There is a "Return to the world", "Attaining the prize", "Helpers" again, and "Tests". The Hickmans also call this the Storymind.
My teenage daughter explains this cycle using the movie "Up". In her words, "Mr. Fredricson wants to go on an adventure. A boy called Russel comes and helps him. They cross the threshold when they go through a storm. A test they go through is trying to return the bird to its home before the other evil guy can get it. More helpers come in the characters of Doug the dog and the bird. They do get the bird back to its home. The go back to society. They have crossed the threshold back home. The prize is they both have grown and learned that relationships are an adventure."
exagerated characters
say-go-be-didn't
suck in your stomach and put some color on
rules of southern women
fringe people
It's not time to worry yet
embarrassed of her dad
tolerance
Daddy/Atticus parallels
weak excuses
side stories make it palatable to a Southern audience
not just an Uncle Tom's Cabin story
both a principle and issue book
careful observing of human nature
insight into human nature
that's just what happened to Joseph (archetype)
say so much with a little phrase
profiling
what is the "static" in our lives preventing us from hearing calls for help
background--literacy--how long your family's been reading
faulting Atticus (or ourselves) for allowing vulnerability
prejudice is pervasive
Civil Right's couldn't have happend before the Salk vaccine
social situations in the South are complex
Dill ran away because he wasn't needed (or didn't feel needed)
I led the discussion, beginning with a brief overview of the Grand Argument Story as explained by Tracy and Laura Hickman at a "Big Read" event I attended a year ago. They explained that there are four journeys in a story-- the Objective Journey, the Main Character Journey, the Impact Character Journey, and the Subjective Journey. Their engaging power-point lecture draws speculations and input from the audience. Eventually it is clear that in THIS story the Objective Journey is the trial of Tom Robinson. The entire town is interested in this event. This is a journey of prejudice. The Main Character Journey would be Scout's. We see the events through her eyes. The Impact Character Journey is Arthur Radley's (or Boo's). He impacts Scout the most. His influence is felt throughout the story (as suggested on the first page of the book). The Subjective Journey is that of both Scout and Boo--their story of overcoming their own prejudices and preconceptions.
I am not saying here that I necessarily agree with this. Some might say that Boo is a Christ archetype. Possibly more on that later.
Speaking of Character Archetypes, the Hickmans go on to explain the Drivers of the Story (or those that move the story forward) and the Passengers of the Story (or those that are taken along for the ride). The Drivers are the Protagonist (or hero), the Contagonist (the one with his or her own agenda, a manipulator, a puppet master), the Guardian (the protector, always weak), and the Antagonist (or the bad guy, as it were). The Passengers of the story are the Skeptic (disbelieving, questioning), the Reason (thinks everything through), the Emotion (feels deeply, acts according to feelings), and the Sidekick (hopeful, believing, faith). Now the fun begins. Who is who in this story? Here are the names: Tom Robinson, May Ella Ewell, Atticus, Bob Ewell, Jem, Scout, Arthur Radley, Dill, and Calpurnia. Now to plug them into their roles in the story. (I won't give away here all the fun the Hickman's have drawing the conclusions out of the audience).
I neglected to share the Mythological Cycle of the Journey Story (again as outlined by the Hickmans). First, the main character crosses a threshold (a point of no return or the first step which takes him or her into the unknown)--the "Threshold Crossing". A Helper comes. There is a "call to adventure". A "prize" is gained (or the person is changed, experiences character growth). The "threshold" is crossed again. This is the "Threshold Return". But this is not the end. There is a "Return to the world", "Attaining the prize", "Helpers" again, and "Tests". The Hickmans also call this the Storymind.
My teenage daughter explains this cycle using the movie "Up". In her words, "Mr. Fredricson wants to go on an adventure. A boy called Russel comes and helps him. They cross the threshold when they go through a storm. A test they go through is trying to return the bird to its home before the other evil guy can get it. More helpers come in the characters of Doug the dog and the bird. They do get the bird back to its home. The go back to society. They have crossed the threshold back home. The prize is they both have grown and learned that relationships are an adventure."
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