A Time For Review and Reflection

This first marking period of my junior year has thus far been very challenging.  The many tough classes I have elected to take have not failed to produce many tough assignments.  Tests, essays, and homeworks have clouded my life for the past month, creating a very stressful beginning of the year.  And this is amid the SAT work, too.

But anyways, Mr. Mogg’s 11th grade language arts class has overall been great.  To start of the class, Mr. Mogg had each of us create a mantra for ourselves.  The mantra I chose was “Knowledge is Power”, a line that I try to apply to school and my life everyday.  Learning is a very powerful thing, and Mr. Mogg’s language arts class has not failed to teach.  The assigned themes have been very interesting, improving my writing.  I enjoyed writing about a current issue that interested me for the first theme and about the great hero of Atticus Finch for the second.  Along the lines of Atticus Finch, our first marking period core novel was fabulous.  Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird was a great read, as it is one of the greatest American classics of all time.  The work we did along the lines of Lee’s novel, from the blog on which I am writing on now to the musical connections we have found to the book, was very informative.

The beginning of my 11th grade year has been a fun one so far.  Language arts is no exception.  I hope that Mr. Mogg’s class continues to provide me with a wealth of knowledge throughout the next three marking periods, as it has done so very well in the current first one.

To Kill A Mockingbird: The Musical?

Harper Lee’s classic novel To Kill A Mockingbird presents many important messages.  One key theme of the book is that of the discrimination of races.  Set in the 1930’s in Maycomb County, Alabama, African Americans are mistreated constantly and face hate on a regular basis.  Atticus Finch, a white lawyer, is assigned to defend Tom Robinson, a black man, in the court of law under the accusations that Tom raped a white woman.  Because of the setting and time period, much of the Maycomb townsfolk oppose Atticus’s decision to defend an African American, sparking conflict.

In singer Marvin Gaye’s classic song “What’s Going On”, there is a clear message that resonates well with the situation in To Kill A Mockingbird.  He sings: “Father, father, everybody thinks we're wrong.  Oh, but who are they to judge us, simply because our hair is long.  Oh, you know we've got to find a way, to bring some understanding here today”.  Tom Robinson and the African American community of Maycomb County can relate to these words very well.  They are judged on a daily basis, simply because they are black and, as seen in the trial, everybody (the white men and women) thinks that Tom Robinson is wrong.  Atticus, representing Tom, aims to create an understanding amongst the court house that just because Tom is black does not mean that he committed the crime.  “What’s Going On” emphasizes a message of equality among people, just as Atticus does in To Kill A Mockingbird.

Social Injustices Today

Throughout our world’s history, social injustices have popped up time and time again.  Even in today’s modern society, discrimination is still alive.  In the United States, this is evident when observing the view that many Americans have of Muslims.  Ever since September 11th, 2001, when Islamic radical extremists hijacked planes and committed unthinkable acts of terrorism, the face of Islam has never been the same.  Americans now feel that all Muslims are terrorists, and view the Islamic people and culture in a hateful manner.  Common, and ignorant, views of Islam from the American perspective are that it is a religion of hate and war.  But these views are completely and utterly incorrect, as Islam is a religion of peace, love, and compassion.  Muslims who have been living in the US for years now and who have adapted to our society are suddenly being subjected to unjust acts of discrimination due to these false beliefs.  It is the innocent, the free, who are enduring the hate, even though the beliefs displayed on 9/11 by the terrorists was one of extremism, beliefs that the majority of Islamic followers do not have.  Most Muslims look down upon and despise the radical beliefs for its violence imposing message.  The social injustice that many Americans place on Muslims is beyond measure, for we are shunning people who have lived in and contributed to American society for years: our own people.

But Muslims are not the only people seeing social injustices today.  Currently in America, gays and lesbians are seeing more and more hate.  Due to the recent uproar in gay marital rights across the states, homosexuals have come out in a negative view.  To many Americans, people with a different sexual orientation are in fact different people.  Gays are rejected in many parts of the country simply because they share a different set of feelings than others.  This is an inexcusable social injustice since gays deserve all of the rights that other Americans do.  The basis of America was built on equality, so by excluding homosexuals from our society, we are breaking the very morals that uprooted our nation.  As an American people, we must not commit social injustices, for it is only disrupting the social unity that our country was created on.  We as a country must learn and preach tolerance so that we can accept all people of all races, ethnicities, and beliefs.

Brown v. Board of Education: The Most Influential Civil Rights Case in United States History, and Literature

“Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.”  This was the first line to one of the most significant and influential cases in United States civil rights history: Brown v. Board of Education.  First erupting in the early 1950’s, African American civil rights debates consumed the news of Americans.  In Topeka, Kansas, a third-grade school girl named Linda Brown was disallowed to attend a white school, sparking much tension between the majority whites and the minority blacks.  When the case was decided in 1954 by the Supreme Court, it was ruled that the racial segregation "...violates the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees all citizens equal protection of the laws...”.  This court ruling was a landmark event to African Americans nationwide, as it overturned the previously stated “separate but equal” policy.  Although the decision was amid much controversy and turmoil throughout the nation, it was truly a historic event for the United States in its years to come.

The case of Brown v. Board of Education was very influential to Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird.  If the ruling would have occurred earlier in United States history, then the book, set in the 1930’s would not have been the same.  Harper Lee was able to write her novel in the ‘60s, immediately after the ruling and still amid racial tension.  If Brown v. Board of Education had taken place just a few decades earlier, then there probably would not have been such racial discrimination as late in American history as the ‘60s.  The case would have died down by the time Lee wrote TKAM, and therefore segregation and racism would not have been such a beating issue at the time of the novel’s release.  The timing of the court case was imperative to the writing of To Kill A Mockingbird and to American civil rights for years to come.

Sources:
http://brownvboard.org/summary/
http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/early-civilrights/brown.html
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=347&invol=483

Gossip: The Irreparable Sin

In the acclaimed movie Doubt, there is a scene in which a priest gives a very powerful sermon on gossip.  He preaches to the congregation a story about a woman who has gossiped, and then goes to church, to ask the parish priest if her gossiping was a sin.  The priest says yes, her gossiping was indeed a sin, for she had bore false witness against her neighbor, and should be “heartily ashamed”.  When the woman asks for forgiveness, the priest orders her to return to her house, stand on her roof, and cut open a pillow with a knife.  The woman does just this and soon after returns to the priest, who asks her what was the result.  “Feathers”, she replies, “feathers everywhere, Father”.  The priest then instructs her to go back home, and pick up each and every feather that had flown away in the wind.  Knowing it is an impossible task, the woman says she cannot, with the Father’s reply, “And that is gossip”.

This meaningful scene depicts gossip perfectly: once it is loose, it can never be stopped, as it will go down in history for years and years to come.  Gossip is seen playing a crucial role in To Kill A Mockingbird, appearing as a major theme in the novel.  In the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, everybody knows each other.  All of the townspeople know the history, who’s who, what’s what, and so on.  Therefore, certain fallacies can easily be transmitted throughout the tight-knit community.  A notorious character Harper Lee presents early on in the book is Boo Radley.  Living a life so solitude in a house with his parents, Boo is never seen out and about.  Different rumors that have circulated about Maycomb of Boo are: that he stabbed his father with a pair of scissors; he eats squirrels, he comes out at night and peeks through people’s windows; he is actually dead and stuffed up the chimney.  With all of this gossip pertaining to Boo Radley, actual truths are difficult to differentiate from, as so many lies have been attached to his name.

Gossip is presented in To Kill A Mockingbird yet again when author Harper Lee introduces the Cunningham and Ewell families.  The Cunningham’s are brought up with the son, Walter, who attends school with Scout.  Through Scout’s little anecdote of the Cunningham’s, it is determined that it is not your typical Maycomb family.  The Cunningham’s work in different ways than most in the town, and everyone in the county knows their story.  Thus so, they are grouped apart from the majority of Maycomb.  Another family, the Ewell’s are described to the reader as a filthy, for no good people, and this is understood throughout the town like the back of their hands.  The two families are seen as outcasts to the townsfolk of Maycomb, due largely in part to Harper Lee’s excellent use of gossip in To Kill A Mockingbird.

Harper Lee

On April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama, Nelle Harper Lee was born.  The American author, famous for writing the classic, To Kill A Mockingbird, was the youngest of four children.  Her father was a lawyer who worked in the Alabama state legislature while her mother suffered from mental illness for most of Lee's young life.  One of Lee's closest childhood friends was another writer-to-be, Truman Capote.  After graduating from high school, Lee attended Huntingdon College in Montgomery then transferred to the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, where she studied law.  She spent the summer before her senior year as an exchange student at Oxford University in England, but when she returned to the States for her fall semester, Lee dropped out of law school.  She later moved to New York City in 1949 to follow her dreams of becoming a writer.  In 1960 she published her famous work To Kill A Mockingbird, winning the Pulitzer Prize for her work a year later.  Ever since the publication, Lee has stayed on the down-low, refusing interviews and staying hidden in her homes in New York City and Monroeville.  To Kill A Mockingbird was Harper Lee's sole book, but nonetheless proved to be a classic American novel for generations and generations to come.




Sources:
http://www.harperlee.com/bio.htm
http://www.biography.com/articles/Harper-Lee-9377021?part=2
http://www.teenreads.com/authors/au-lee-harper.asp
http://www.nndb.com/people/572/000025497/