Wag's Class...Blog Junkies

Black and White Case

syu2 — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:06:19 +0000

The main reason Tom Robinson was being tried for raping Mayella Ewell was because Maycomb’s “reasonable people [went] stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro [came] up,” (88). The “Maycomb’s usual disease,” (88) meant white folks in Maycomb believed all black men were not to be trusted and are not seen as human beings. Just like Atticus said, “This case is as simple as black and white.” (203) But only “some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be trusted around women — black or white.” (204) No matter what race, every men has lied and cheated in life so white men do not have the right to accuse black men for every bad crime that is committed. So this whole case in the book symbolizes how blacks are viewed in the eyes of white men.

Scout’s accomplishment

syu2 — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 02:10:10 +0000

I believe Scout is viewed as a foolish child up to this specific point in the book where she stands between her father an a mob of full grown men who came for Tom Robinson, the black man who Atticus was defending for. She, without even knowing or fully understanding the situation she was in, decided to approach Mr. Cunningham, a face she recognized among the crowd, in a friendly manner. Scout tried to talk to him about what he was interested in by mentioning his son but she “began to sense the futility one feels when unacknowledged by a chance acquaintance…” (153) when he was uncomfortably ignoring her. So she “tackled his entailment once more in a last-ditch effort to make him feel at home…” (154), which brought their full attention and the “men were all looking at [her], some had their mouths half-open.” (154) Slowly Scout realized “what idiocy [she] had committed…” (154), but in the end, the men left and she saved her father and Tom Robinson from harm. It took an eight-year-old child to bring a group of grown men back to their senses.

How is poverty portrayed, and what is a man’s responsibility to those who are less fortunate?

cupcakecult26 — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:49:40 +0000

Through Scout’s very first day of school poverty is interwoven in “To Kill a Mockingbird”. “He didn’t forget his lunch, he didn’t have any. He had none today nor would he have any tomorrow or the next day. He had probably never seen three quarters together in his life.” (p20) In Maycomb County poverty is not an aboration. “That’s okay, ma’am, you’ll get to know all the county folks after a while. The Cunninghams never took anything they can’t pay back–no church baskets and no scrip stamps. They never took anything off of anybody, they get along on what they have. They don’t have much, but they get along on it.” (p20) Everyone in the first grade class knew who was poor and took it for granted. The children didn’t tease them for lack of money or posessions, but rather, they knew the situation, and thought it normal. The adults helped one another out in response to that poverty and Atticus was the greatest example of this. “After a dreary conversation in the livingroom one night about his entailment, before mr.Cunningham left he said, ‘Mr. Finch, I don’t know when I’ll ever be able to pay you.’ ’Let that be the least of your worries, Walter,’ Atticus said.” (p20) And after that statement, it goes on further to explain that the Cunninghams had paid them in incerments through food. Atticus accepted that his client didn’t have enough income to pay him and feed his family so he bent the common practice for him. It was his obligation as a fellow humanbeing to extend his hand, help out, and not expect an extremely large ammount in return.

Why is child innocence so sacred, and how do children grow out of it?

cupcakecult26 — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:29:37 +0000

Child innocence is sacred because it’s days are numbered. It only lasts as long as the general ignorance (of the world) in the child does. Until a child experiences a tragedy or a life altering event, the innocence remains. Everyone at some point has this innocence and everyone grows out of it at some point; some must grow up faster than others though. In “To Kill a Mockingbird” Scout’s innocence is put at risk when school childeren and people in the community first begin to criticize Atticus openly. “He had announced in the schoolyard the day before that Scout Finch’s daddy defended niggers. I denied it, but told Jem.” (p74) Scout was beginning the exposure to an entirely different plain of hatred and violence and contempt that she had never been forced to face before. As the book goes on, she begins to understand more and more about the situation at hand, and through that knowledge her innocence is eaten away.

How prepared is Holden for the adult world?

syu2 — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 04:50:44 +0000

Holden is miles away from being an adult, miles away. It was very immature of him to just leave the school dorm because he was only feeling depressed and lonely, which led to his decision to go to a hotel instead of patiently waiting for only a couple of days until he leaves the school permanently. Holden isn’t even aware of how the consequences are seriously affecting his life and says getting the “ax” like something normal, the reason why he is so uneducated and doesn’t understand right from wrong. He offers random people he just met drinks by asking them to join him for a cocktail, saying “[he] can usually get them on account of [his] heighth…and [he has] quite a bit of gray hair” (57). In addition to his childlike thinking, Holden phoned a “girl that wasn’t exactly a whore or anything but that didn’t mind doing it once in a while,” (63) in the middle of the night when he was feeling horny, showing he was not able to have selfcontrol in some respect. He doesn’t even try to put any effort into improving himself and is careless about his own life and future throughout the whole book.

Catcher Questions Week 2

kwags4 — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:17:25 +0000

Hey bloggers…sorry I didn’t get these questions up until now. I will give you two extra days to get blog responses in because I was late on giving them to you. But, rules still apply: choose one question to respond to, provide support for you answer, and make sure you pay attention to your blogmates’ responses. Due date is now Tuesday, Nov. 17 at midnight.

Questions (chapters 7 – 15):

1. Describe Holden’s emotional stability.

2. How prepared is Holden for the adult world?

3. How does Holden view the women he meets?

4. What effect does Holden’s red hunting hat have on his demeanor?

What are Holden’s views on education? How are these views similar to students today?

syu2 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:52:58 +0000

Holden does not consider education as an essential part of his life. He has no interest in his subjects in school, which shows why he is failing four out of five of his classes. When Holden went to talk to his history teacher, Mr. Spencer, he recieved a lecture about his future. Mr. Spencer asked Holden if he even cared about his own future and Holden answered he does but “not too much.” (14) He even went far to write on his exam paper to Mr. Spencer that “It [was] all right with [him] if [Mr. Spencer] flunk[ed] [him] though as [he was] flunking everthing else except English anyway.” (12) This proves he has no concern over his grades and is not even fazed by it at all. Also when his history teacher asked a serious question about how Holden felt about being kicked out of school, all Holden was worried about was that he wished “[Mr. Spencer]‘d cover up his bumpy chest.” (13) He is straying from the main point of the lecture again when he gives “bull” to his teacher about how he “was a real moron” and “would’ve done exactly the same thing” when Mr. Spencer asked him what would he have done in his place (12). This kind of thinking can be similar to students today too because students have no interest in school and takes it for granted. Millions of students careless over academics since school is seemed as an enforced chore; so students end up not trying their best in school by letting grades fall.

Catcher in the Rye Questions: Week One

kwags4 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:19:45 +0000

Blog Questions for Catcher in the Rye: Week One (chapters 1 – 6)

Directions: Answer one of the questions THOROUGHLY using support from the book to back up your answers. This means that you need to QUOTE passages that relate to what you are trying to say. Post by midnight on Sunday, November 8.

Where is Holden writing his story from, and why? (California is not enough, and I don’t mean give me a city. Think about this critically.)
Why is Holden so hung up over Stradlater taking Jane on a date? Does he have a right to act the way he is acting?
What are Holden’s views on education? How are these views similar to students today?
Why do you think Holden lies so much? What does this say about him?

How is it that a kid with so much compassion could cause his parents so much pain?

syu2 — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 02:46:31 +0000

McCandless was a very compassionate person because he had forgiven his literary heroes like Jack London who was a drunk. He judged people by their work, not by their lifestyle. But a kid like McCandless can cause his parents pain because he didn’t extend that compassion to his own father. McCandless started to grow emotionally distant from his parents after he had found out that Walt McCandless, his father, still had contact with Marcia , his ex-wife, before they moved and fathered another child with her after Chris’ birth. Chris expressed his rage against his parents in silence and sullen withdrawal which eventually pushed him to rip away from his own family. McCandless probably couldn’t forgive his own father because he loved him. When it comes to family, they are harder to forgive than others because they are people who you trust the most. So he must have felt betryal and strong pain from his father’s mistake.

Why does Krakauer include his own story of adventure and near death in a book about Chris McCandless?

cupcakecult26 — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:44:15 +0000

Krakuer included his own escapades in “Into the Wild” because it gave credibility to his writing. His occassional uplifting of Chris McCandless might have seemed mysterious to most until Krakauer revealed his past brush with death very similar to Chris’s. It all clicked at that point; why he wrote the article and then the book, why he put so much emphasis on this particular story etc. The book just now, makes more sense. The author traveled to Devil’s Thumb and at times came to an inch of his life and the main difference between he and McCandless is that Krakauer is still alive to tell the tale. I can only imagine that this author had a great empathy for Chris and understood his need to find himself by breeching the bounds of normal life. By adding his own story he gave validation to Chris’s blind yearning for a ‘filler’ in his seemingly empty exsistence. They both found allure in this sense of being on the edge and they both probably thought these trips would change…something. Whatever that something may have been.