To Kill a Mockingbird

The first couple chapters of this book didn’t make much sense to me and was boring but when Radley place was introduced it started getting interesting.

When I started reading Harper Lee‘s novel to Kill a Mockingbird the characters were introduced Scout, Jem, Dill and Boo Radley. Scout also known as Jean Louise Finch narrates the story. The novel takes place during the Great Depression in a small town called Maycomb where everyone knows one another. Maycomb is described as an “old town, but it was a tired old town when I knew it” (6) this quote makes the town sound like it is boring and lazy and there is not much to do. Scout is an intelligent, brave girl who acts like a tomboy she loves to play outdoors with her brother Jem. Jem gets along well with his sister and is very protective of her. Dill is Scout and Jem’s summer friend.

Scout is a very intelligent girl for her age she learned how to read with her father and write with Calpurnia before she even started school. You would think her teacher would be happy to hear that she can read but when school began her teacher “Miss Caroline tells her to stop reading with her father because he is teaching her all wrong” (39). How can that make sense Miss Caroline’s way of teaching is irrational. Scouts way of thinking and analyzing at a young age is unbelievable considering the fact of her young age.

As the story goes on Jem, Dill and Scout get fascinated about Radley place and want to know more about it. In the novel Radley place is described as “rain rotted shingles drooped over the eaves of the veranda; oak trees kept the sun away” (10). I imagined a dark spooky house that has no life in it. Scout, Jem, and Dill never saw anyone come out of Radley place but a boy named Boo Radley lived there. Jem would ask his father about the Radleys but his answer was to mind his own business. I wonder why Boo Radley never gets out and why his house is so dark and unpleasant. Boo Radley sounds like a depressed unsocial person. It seems like the Radleys are hiding something.

So far I have learned that there are the Radleys who keep their life a secret and no one knows much about them, living in there unwelcoming dark house. The Ewells and the Cunninghams are known as the poor families that live in Maycomb they pay off any debts with whatever they have to offer and their children don’t go to school much.

Can’t wait to read the rest!