Dialectical Journal For To Kill A Mockingbird

1. A young girl named Scout lives in Maycomb, Alabama with her older brother Jem, and her father Atticus. Atticus, a lawyer, takes on a rape case concerning a Negro named Tom Robinson and a white woman named Mayella Ewell, as Tom’s defense. Many of Maycomb’s residents didn’t appreciate Atticus representing a Negro and Atticus was, as their cousin Francis put it “Nothin’ but a nigger-lover!” (Lee 83). In court Atticus disgraces Bob Ewell, by proving him a liar. Tom was found guilty and was shot trying to escape. Bob launches a personal vendetta onto anyone connected to the case. He attacks the children, injuring Jem, and inadvertently killing himself.
2. My favorite character was Scout Finch. I liked Scout because her views changed throughout the novel, showing her transition from childhood to adolescence. She started out as a young southern tomboy who wore britches and who looked down on Negros to a young understanding lady who wore dresses and respected them. She even began to regret tormenting Boo Radley, her neighbor and taking his gifts out of a tree without returning them, as she said in the novel: “We never put back in the tree what we had taken out of it: we had given him [Boo] nothing, and that made me sad.” (Lee 278) By the end of the novel she learned to tolerate the individuality of people.

The theme of the novel was that inequality and discrimination exist and need to be stopped. Throughout the story Scout and Jem have their innocence destroyed because their father was defending an African American in court. They slowly come to the realization that their “nice” Maycomb society is not so nice and is actually made up of a bunch of harsh, and judgmental people, some like Bob Ewell, who could only keep saying that “Some nigger’d raped his girl.” (Lee 167) The children also came to their own realization that society is not always right and that they must have individual opinions. This shows that the social norms of discrimination are wrong and need to