Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird Read Online Free PDF Page B

Bob Ewell and Satan but reveals an overwhelmingly strong pattern (in thirty-four answers, within and outside the working sample) in identifying Ewell with evil. One source outside the working sample even points out the sound similarities between Bob Ewell’s last name and the word “evil.”
    Two posts in the working sample challenge the widespread characterization of the Finch family, headed by Atticus Finch, as good and the Ewell family, headed by Bob Ewell, as evil. The student posted a question that included the characterization of the Ewell daughter as “disgusting” (i.e., “Why is the Ewell daughter both pathetic and disgusting?”) and the teacher, in replying to that question, challenged the characterization (i.e., “I don’t agree at all that she’s disgusting. Instead, I have strong sympathy for the character”). A second teacher’s answer perceives Atticus’ treatment of the Ewells to reveal a flaw, not a virtue, of his character:
    Atticus’ view of Bob Ewell is perhaps the only chink in his armor. We are supposed to like Atticus; he’s the moral center of the story, and is a sympathetic and likeable character. However, he does refer to Bob Ewell as “trash,” and while his characterization may be accurate, it does not sound like a statement from a man who is supposed to be so tolerant and compassionate. However, one could also argue that Atticus has sympathy for those who he feels deserve it, like Mayella, but not for those who do not, like Bob.
    A theoretical sampling of the full collection of answers has failed to locate further instances of challenges to the dominant view of Atticus Finch and Bob Ewell as embodiments of good and evil.
    Life Lessons
    When talking to students about the experiences and changes of the younger characters in the novel, particularly when talking about Scout and Jem Finch, the teachers frequently move in their answers toward explicit and implicit discussions of influence, identity development, intellectual and social development, loss of innocence, growing awareness of hypocrisy and evil in the world, and other topics related to adolescence. The teachers’ emphasis on education and the development of youth in the novel is understandable, given their occupations and their audiences of middle school, high school, and first-year college students.
    A number of answers in the working sample explicitly address the idea of education. The longest answer discusses four main ideas of the novel, all relating to the emerging theme of Life Lessons. Even as one teacher writes that “Harper repeatedly mocks the various deficiencies in modern education,” the teacher tracks the maturation of several young people in the story through lived experiences outside of school and explains how the novel gives the reader a lesson in the importance of being tolerant and being free of prejudice. Several answers in the working sample similarly point to the hypocrisy of the schoolteachers in the novel, who do not live by their own lessons, and one answer in the working sample argues that the children’s true growth occurs when they step outside of the confines of formal education: the children “are attacked by Bob Ewell [i.e., they encounter real evil] after leaving the school.” One answer in the working sample focuses more specifically on Scout’s education in gender identity or performance. The teacher writes,
    Because Scout is motherless, Atticus knows that she must have a feminine influence and leaves that task to several women whom he trusts. . . . From Calpurnia, Scout learns that Southern ladies are tenacious and protective . . . [and] what it means to show hospitality as a Southern woman. . . . Scout learns from [Aunt Alexandra] what it means to be a gracious lady even when people make distasteful comments in one’s home . . . [and] that even the most stubborn, set-in-their-ways Southern women can change. . .