My own Mockingbird

     To Kill a Mockingbird is a very odd book, in that it works on two levels. On one hand, the book is exactly what it is: a story told in text. At the same time, it takes a deeper meaning to each reader. If it didn't, after all, discussions of it would be meaningless, as the opinions expressed would be uniform. To one person, Scout may be a brave, intelligent child, while to another, she might be nothing more than a vehicle that the story is viewed from, and not a particularly good one at that. To each, To Kill a Mockingbird is a unique book, not quite the same one experienced by anyone else.

     The story spoke to me in two different ways, as the book itself told a dual narrative in many ways. I personally thought that Scout's childhood and the court case itself featured two intertwined arcs, and each affected me in its own way.

     The court case, and the larger issue of racism it explored, was something almost entirely new to me. Growing up, the closest I have come to the vehement opinions of the characters are being mistaken for a Mexican. So I was completely unprepared for the judgmental attitudes the characters freely displayed. From Mrs. Dubose to Scout's own teacher, the characters by today's standards are blatant racists. At first, I had trouble comprehending this, and to work to understand it. Eventually, I began to, if not sympathize with, at least understand the attitudes that had caught me off-guard. This development, to me, was one of the most integral parts of To Kill a Mockingbird.

     At the same time, Scout's childhood both reminded and contrasted with my own childhood. At the house I lived in up until the age of about 8, I had a huge backyard. Nowadays, it seems to have shrank, but at the time, it was a maze of snake-filled hedges, a cliff, a massive (to my mind), temple-like gazebo, a huge tree, and occasional outcroppings of grass and rock. Scout's explorations of her neighborhood brought this to mind, and her plays with Jem and Dill brought to mind countless stories of good guys and bad guys my brother and I had invented to amuse ourselves.
     The similarities brought nostalgia, but there were contrasts, chief among them the existence of Dill. Everywhere I have lived, I have never been particularly close to a neighbor of mine. My friends have lived a moderate distance away, so that seeing them outside of school becomes a bit of a special occasion. Comparing this to Scout and Dill's constant adventures, I felt a bit of loss.
Throughout To Kill a Mockingbird, the parts of it that have spoken to me have created the unique story that I know it as.

My Boo Radley

Hello again,

     Very few, if any people that I know fit into my life the way Boo Radley fits into Scout's. The simple problem is, no one is mysterious enough. However, particularly in my early childhood, my geographic location was simultaneously important to my upbringing and mysterious to my 6-year-old mind, similar to Boo Radley, in a roundabout sense.

     Anyone, particularly a real estate agent, can tell you that location is terribly important to anything. And as a small child, I had some idea of where I was, similar to the fact that Scout knows that Boo Radley is probably human, and lives in a creepy old house nearby. I knew that school was twenty minutes from home, that this was a long way, and that the drive between the two involved roads, a car, and several large bridges. If you had asked me what streets and roads I was on, however, I would be clueless. Likewise, any stranger asking for directions to "east Olympia", for example, would receive a blank stare.

     I honestly don't know where my geographic knowledge, or lack thereof, came from. I knew perfectly well, after all, which street I lived on, which state I was in, and could probably point where I was on a map, if asked. Yet everything I knew was measured in a magical unit called "distance from home". In my mind, my house was the center of the universe, a point from which everything else radiated outwards. As for relations between each other, my mind grew more hazy. Once two buildings became more than a few streets apart, I had no idea.

     At the same time, my location, unbeknownst to me, was exerting great influence on my life. My school, for example, was a rather long distance from home. As a result of this, I didn't have friends over very often, as most lived closer to school. This only occurred to me long afterwards, but I realize now that a large portion of my development was affected by my geography. The most obvious shift it caused, of course, was my move significantly closer to school in order to remain inside of the school district. Although I understood the effect, the cause remained beyond my reach..


     Similarly to Scout, as I grew older, my understanding of my location increased. I began paying attention to street signs, noticing similar locations, and eventually meshing together a map of Olympia. The map was incomplete, but at least it worked. As time passed, blanks filled in, freeways popped into existence, and I became more aware of my geography. Likewise, by the end of the story, Scout knows Boo Radley not to be a bogeyman, a monster, or a murderer, but simply as a rather childlike old man who lives on her street. The unknown gradually becomes the accepted.

Thanks for listening to me ramble on,

     -Me

Introductions

Hello,

Welcome to my rather generic English blog for 9th grade. At this point, I think I'm supposed to describe myself. Here we go:

As a reader, I tend to read fantasy and sci-fi, with a random dabble of nonfiction and realistic fiction thrown in at unspecified intervals. As a writer, I'm impatient to finish and tend to speak......colorfully.

Anyone wanting to follow this blog will find various school-related posts. Like this one, for example. As for enlightening the online world, if it needs enlightening, it should probably look somewhere else. I recommend Wikipedia. Google is also useful.

The meaning of English class....well, literally, it is the gathering of students and a teacher who study the language spoken in the United States. However, in reality, it's a bit more complex than that. English, or any language really, is about communication. The purpose of English class is to strive for a greater degree of clarity and eloquence in comminications with others, whether written or spoken. It is also, through reading, to expand horizons far beyond the limits of what actually exists and to inform others of views, actions, and ideas.

I honestly have no idea why English is a four-year-requirement for colleges, except that colleges might prefer well-written applications. For reality, it certainly seems as if English is necessary in order to function best, but I would think that requiring four years of whatever you will be studying might be a bit more effective.

Thanks for listening to me ramble on.

   -Me