Vince Morreale

Mrs. Dietrich
Honors English 10
12/2/16
To Kill a Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression
era. The book is narrated by one of the main characters, Jean Louise Finch, also known as
Scout. Atticus Finch is her father who is raising her and her brother, Jem, by himself. His wife
had passed away when the children were young. He loves his children and teaches them to do the
right thing by always leading as a good example.
The story begins with the first time that Scout and Jem met Dill Harris, a boy from
Mississippi who spends his summers with his aunt. Dills aunt is one of the Finchs neighbors.
Once Dill leaves, Scout begins school. At school, Scout gets in a fight with a classmate that got
her in trouble with the teacher. Jem breaks up the fight and then invites the classmate to their
house. On another day, Scout and Jem are walking home from school when they spot a shiny
gum wrapper in a tree hole. Later, they find some coins in the hole. When Dill returned, Scout,
Jem and he played a game called Boo Radley, where they would pretend to be the neighborhood
menace and myth who never leaves his house, Boo Radley.
On the last day that Dill was going to be in Maycomb, he, Jem, and Scout decided to go
look in Boo Radleys window. They hadnt seen Boo Radley, but his father came out outside and
fired a shotgun when he heard the noise. When the kids ran away, Jems pants had gotten stuck

on the bottom of a fence, so he removed them and ran away. Later that night, his pants were
folded in his backyard. They suspect that Boo Radley might have returned the pants there.
Later that year, Scout was getting teased about her father defending a black man. The
black man was Tom Robinson, and he was convicted of raping a white woman. The jury
appointed Atticus to be his lawyer, which was generous to Tom because Atticus was a skilled,
experienced lawyer. Atticus tells Scout that whatever happens, do not fight whenever she gets
upset, and Scout promises that she will not.
As spring was coming, Scout and Jem begin to think that Atticus is boring because he is
unable to do the physical things that most fathers can do due to his older age. However when a
rabid dog comes in the neighborhood, Atticus shoots the dog from distance with ease. They
found out that back in the day Atticus had the best shot in all of Maycomb, which made them
reevaluate their thinking. Later Calpurnia, the house keeper who is like a mother figure in a way
to the kids, takes the kids to her church. This upsets Atticuss sister, who insists that he releases
her.
When the trial started, Mayella Ewell, the girl who accused Tom of rape, started telling
her story about how Tom raped her. She said that one day he broke in and started beating her and
punching her, and thats how she got the bruises on her face. After Tom told the real truth about
what had happened, Atticus had pointed out that Mayellas bruises were on the right side of her
face, which means that she was hit by a left hand mostly. It turned out that Toms left hand was
shriveled because he got it stuck in a cotton gin and unable to be used, so he couldnt have hit her
with it. However Bob Ewell, her father, was left handed which pointed to him punching her.

Despite all the evidence supporting Tom, the verdict read that he was guilty. Jem and
Scout were furious and frustrated. The African American community brought the Finchs food
and presents for defending Tom. Soon after the trial, Bob Ewell threatens Atticus about hurting
his kids. A few weeks later, breaking news struck Maycomb: Tom Robinson was dead. The
officials claimed that he tried to climb the fence of the prison that he was in, and after being
warned to get down, he was shot seventeen times. It was obviously a lie that Tom was trying to
climb the fence, since his disabled hand would prevent him from doing it.
Later that year, Scout overheard people making racists comments about the trial. When
she asked Jem about them, he tells her to never talk about the trial ever again. Bob Ewell also
blamed Atticus for him losing his job. In addition to doing this, he would always yell at Tom
Robinsons wife, Helen, on her way to work.
After things the women of Maycomb decided to make a Halloween pageant. Scout was in
it, and offered to walk Scout home. On their way home, they heard noises in the woods. They
assume that it is one of their classmates trying to scare them, but then they were attacked by an
unknown person out of nowhere. Scout manages to get free and run away. She then notices that
Jem was being carried away unconscious by a mysterious person. When she got back to the
house, she finds out that Jem was carried there by the mysterious person. After this, they called a
doctor and a sheriff. It turned out that the kids were attacked by Bob Ewell. Scout had been
stabbed multiple times, but her large costume prevented the blade from reaching her.
Finally, when the sheriff did some investigating, they found Bob Ewell dead at the crime
sight with a knife in his chest. While they initially thought that Jem had killed him, it turned out
that Boo Radley killed him while trying to save Scout and Jem. He also carried Jem home to
safety. When Jem woke up, he and Scout got to meet Boo Radley for the first time. It turned out

that he was not a scary monster liked they had originally imagined him, but rather a kind man
who was just very shy.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a book that teaches the importance of never judging a book by
its cover. While most people thought that Tom Robinson was a horrible person because of his
color, it turned out that he was actually a kind man who was wrongly persecuted. Also when the
kids thought Atticus was boring due to his old age, they later found out that he was one the most
accurate shooters in Maycomb. And while the kids thought that Boo Radley was a crazy menace
in the neighborhood, it turned out that he would be the one that would save their lives. Scout and
Jem learn a lot of valuable lessons by the way Atticus lives his life, and how he never judges a
book by its cover.