The novel To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee demonstrates the idea of prejudice. Throughout the novel prejudice is portrayed in various aspects that affect not only the individuals of the Macomb community but the groups as well. Prejudice connects with the ideas of superstition as well as injustice. You could say that prejudice is ‘Macomb’s disease’ and the people are blinded by the racial prejudice in the society: therefore lading to the death of Tom Robinson, for he was found guilty without justice.

The book illustrates different aspects of prejudice. One aspect would be the hatred towards the blacks as well as the underground violence that could surface at any given time. An example of this would be the lynch mob. The lynch mob was full of men that decided to take the law into their own hands and they would all take care of the ‘problem’.They all came together before the Tom Robinson trial and tried to kill him before the trial began. This shows hoe the people that were involved in the lynch mob are people that fall under the pressures of the society. The influence of society set in the time of the novel was based mainly on racism.

Another aspect of prejudice within the novel is superstition. One person in the novel the exemplifies the e dead would be Boo Radly (Arthur Radly). Boo brought wonder, fear, and eventually relief to Scout and the children. At first the children viewed Boo as scary, a phantom. He rumour that Ms. Stephanie states that one day Boo was cutting out newspaper articles for his scrapbook when he “drove the scissors into his parents leg” (page 111). Though it was just a rumour it still made the children terrified of the Radley’s, specifically Boo. He was often described as a monster that was “six-and-a-half feet tall” with “bloodstained” hands, and he ate “raw squirrels and any catch could catch” (page12). In the novel the children try to get Boo to come out of the house to overcome their irrational fear of him. At the ending of the book Boo proves he is a good man by saving thelives of Jem and Scout. At this point Scout learns the prejudging someone is wrong and she should never judge a book by its cover.

Injustice is represented in the novel through the characters. The one that faces the most is Tom Robinson. Tom was a victim of racial injustice, a raw, upfront injustice. “I seen that black nigger yonder ruttin on my Mayella” (page 173). Tom has been charged for rape: a crime which he did not commit. Tom Robinson’s side of the story was not believed because he was a Negro and he had been sentenced to an all white Jury which made the trail very biased. Tom did not retaliate or get ad during the trial when he was wrongly accused which shows a great deal of respect he has for people and shows a big aspect of who he is as a person.

Prejudice showed its face many tines in To Kill a Mockingbird, and in some but very few instances of prejudice being overcome. From the prejudice of Boo to the injustice of Tom Robinson, this novel portrays the example of how one person can look out a window and have a completely different view then the person standing directly next to them. Its books like these that make you wonder how messed up our world was that caused people to write a book about it. If we can wipe or widows clean, the people that know what’s right won’t have to hold all of the guilt of the people that do wrong.

In the beginning of the Truman Show they show you the creator, Christof, speaking to the audience. He is explaining that the reason the show is so different because Truman is real. He isn’t an actor and he believes that it is all his reality. Even though it may seem as though that it is true, when I thought about it really wasn’t.

When watching the movie, he goes about his daily life as if it was real. He meets the same people each and everyday and thinks nothing of it. He does the same thing almost everyday and he knows it all to be true. But everything that happens in his life is scripted. All the people, the cars, the streets, the dogs, everything. The only thing that isn’t scripted is Truman. But all the choices Truman makes, all his decisions, and his actions. Everyone and everything around him does something that causes him to act or react on.

A good example would be in the very beginning when he walks out of the house. The neighbors say good morning to him which makes him say his usual line; “and if I don’t see you, good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight”. Which, if I would guess, is probably a big catch phrase in the real world? Then the dog is supposed to jump on him which forces him into the car and then has off to work. Just in that few seconds of film you can see that he doesn’t have a different routine because it’s the same each and every morning.

A second example would be on his way into the office when the two men stop him and back him up against the wall. I think this is a reason to stall him from going into the building. This gives the actors time to set up for his day inside the office. This would happen each and everyday as well as resulting in a continuous routine.

His options are very limited as well. Things that people do in the real world, he can’t do in his world. When it shows a flash back of him in school, he stated he wanted to be an explorer but the teacher discourages him because they all know he can’t leave. Also when he is at work, he is asked to go to the mainland to deliver some paper work. But to do this he has to take a ferried. They do this to remind him of the day his father died in the ocean and to remind him of his fear of the water. This eliminates his need for adventure and traveling over seas.

Truman’s love life was even scripted. He was meant to fall in love with Marrel when he fell in love with Lauren/Sylvia. This part of the movie shows how his free will was taken from him. In the real world he could have fallen in love with her and they could have grown old together. But because she tried to tell him the truth she was taken away from him and he was forced to settle for Marrel. During his time in the basement and the flashbacks, you see that Truman’s love is strong for Lauren/Sylvia. He also takes different futures of women’s faces in magazines to reconstruct her face.

In the end it is him unconditional love for Sylvia that drives him to conquer his fear of the water and leave to find her. For me, this was the only true thing about Truman in the show because his love was real. The show is scripted in a way that makes Truman do certain things. Though he is not scripted they script him, not directly but discretely.

Too young to be, yet is. Careless with no regrets, the one with the beautiful smile and milky white skin, Bright eyes open to the world, Hair that glistens in the sunlight, flowing alongside the tangled grass in the wind that whispers the secrets of the world. She stands and listens to the world waiting patiently for the sun to sleep and to turn off the lights in the world. Young and free for a moment she wishes it could stay like this. All at once the world is still. The grass no longer sways and her hair no longer flows. The sun still and the wind quite with no secrets to whisper. Yet her hair still glistens in the light of the world. The world still as if time had stopped forever. One moment, not even a second, frozen forever in a bright white flash. Trapped in a box to remember and cherish that one moment.

Some eyes see nothing other then what it shows, others see it all. They see all the sorrow, pain, love, happiness, need and regret. All the smiles, tears and the laughter frozen in that moment and though you can’t see it, it is true. She is that memory, she is that moment. I know not who she is or how she came to be. All I know is she stands there in that moment frozen, never moving forward. Trapped in time and only she knows how that moment felt. For now, she is frozen in time along with the world in a moment that can never fade in that photograph.

Response:

This is a visual response I wrote to show how I view the picture. I started out writing what I saw in the first paragraph. Only I wanted it to be very vivid description of the picture. I wanted people to imagine what it would like like and what it would feel like to be that little girl. If you read the first paragraph you notice I don’t call it a photograph at all.

All at once the world is still. The grass no longer sways and her hair no longer flows. The sun still and the wind quite with no secrets to whisper. Yet her hair still glistens in the light of the world. The world still as if time had stopped forever. One moment, not even a second, frozen forever in a bright white flash. Trapped in a box to remember and cherish that one moment.

When you read it you know it is a photograph without me telling you. You know that a white flash can be the flash of a camera and by saying it is trapped inside a box, meaning a printed picture. I tried to make it seem like it is a picture but not trying to make it super obvious.

Just the way a picture can capture a moment amazes me. To think that there is one moment in your life that is special to you but gone the very next. A photograph to me is a memory. Something to keep that moment and remember it for the rest of your life.

In The second paragraph I went deeper then what I only saw. When you take a picture you take that very small fragment of a second with you. I began to wonder what was going on at that very moment. Everyone everywhere was doing something, feeling something different. Someone was experiencing something new, A baby was being born, A loving family lost someone, Someone might have been getting married. I imagined beyond what the little girl could see, smell, hear, and touch and tried to in vision something much bigger that what an eye could see.

What is Fate? To many people it means many things. In Romeo and Juliet’s case, Fate was an act depicted by God to end a fatal feud. A feud, coincidently, that existed between the two lover’s households. Romeo, being a Montague and Juliet being a Capulet; there love could never prevail. Nonetheless, their
love was unconditional.

The feud that existed between the two households had gone on long enough. Something needed to be done and someone, somewhere, would play Fate.
God had come to the realization; In order to end the feud they must lose what is most precious to them. Hence, Romeo was born a Montague’s and Juliet was
born a Capulet; and when the time came, they would meet.

These two children led very different lives, yet they both had one thing in common; they were enemies. They were raised to believe that they were vile and mean. When they met, they did not know each other’s name. From that moment they knew they loved each other. When they found out they were enemies, they did not care. For their love raised above all hate. To love and to hate are two contradicting terms? Love has more power then hate because hate is one
emotion. Love is more than one. It is happiness, loneliness, sadness, loathing, and longing. To love is to live. To hate is to die.

Their family’s feud was no longer theirs. A name is all there was. A name that represented two households that lived in agony and pain because of a feud that had gone on for so long, they don’t even know what it was about. To be a Capulet and a Montague was to be born with into a family that has no choice but to be a part of a feud. If they were not born into those families they could love one another with no conflict. With this hate sprung an emotion that was much bigger then love. The knowledge of knowing their one true love was their fatal enemies, came the ergo to want to be with each other even more.
The idea that they love someone they could never dream of loving is what made their love grow with passion and desire.

These families had been so distracted by the feud that they never thought to stop and consider their children’s happiness. They only cared about themselves and they had a conflict with one another that the children did not but followed in their footsteps. To think that at such a young age, to fake your death to love who you want is unimaginable. Loving someone so passionately that when they are gone your existence for living diseases.

Romeo and Juliet’s’ love was infinite but at the same time it was gone within an instant. They had met one night then a few days later they were to be wed. To me this book seems like a fairy tale. The fair maiden is swept off her feet by the man of her dreams and without knowing anything about one another, they get married. The only difference is there is no evil queen and sadly there are no talking animals. But the concept of love remains the same. When you think about it, in today’s time and age we wait months and sometimes even years to find out if we love someone enough to marry them. Even though this is reality, I personally would find it very romantic to be in Juliet’s position but at the same time I like to just be a kid. I’m still young and I know there is
so much for me to discover and eventually I will find love; when I’m ready.

I, myself have never fancied nature as a whole, but yet have never loathed it. Nature, to me, is very common because I have lived around it for numerous years. David Suzuki’s essay, as an overall view, is about how adults and children view nature. I find myself to relate in one way or another to his idea to act on separate views of Nature.

I prefer to live in the city where there are homes, buildings, streets, and cars. I find myself felling more safe at home. Whereas when I am out camping I feel somewhat uneasy and a little out of order. This does not mean that I despise nature. I do enjoy nature; I just prefer to be in the city. Another large impact on this is how I was raised. I have always lived in the city and I have adapted to specific ways of those of us who do the same. More than 50% of our world lives in urban settings and it is becoming more and more common with the increase of population.

As a young child, I would play in the dirt, catch different types of bugs and put them in a jar. As I got older the things I did slightly shifted. I would Begin to admire pretty flowers and make princess crowns form dandelions.  I began to show less interest in the area of nature. Soon I began to play with toys rather then outside in the dirt. Many kids today are not outside all the time. Infect a margoity of them spend their days indoors, wasting away time watching idiot boxes and hand held gaming systems. I understand what Suzuki is trying to address when he says “Nature is an enemy. Its dirty, dangerous and a nuisance. So youngsters try to distance themselves from nature and try to control it”. I think one of the best ways we do that is by keeping children occupied with more materialistic things.

I also find that parents and their children have very different views on nature. Children seem to find themselves out doors substantially more often because of their wide imagination and their growing craving of curiosity.  Parents on the other hand don’t have time for such things. They see it to be a waste of time. They find it to be more interesting to have their hands glued to a keyboard and they eyes to a screen. They work all day long inside an office and they come home and they are on blackberries, I phones, and laptops for hours on end. When they “grow up” they put away their interest for nature and focus on more important things. Because they view nature as a nuisance, they teach their kids the same but not intentially. Suzuki says “children and adults alike usually respond by saying “yuk””. This is not intentional; it is just a common reaction many people have which is understandable.

I personally believe that we as a society need to recognize nature for its unique and interesting ways. We all need to remember what it was like when we had our first encounters with a butterfly or a flower> If we continue to treat earth with disrespect then we will not gain anything what so ever. We all seem to forget what nature is. It is the ways of life. Nature is what gives us life. It is the reason for our existence and our breath. I know I need to start to recognize nature and view it as a gift rather than a nuisance.  Reading David Suzuki’s Essay is my first step. What will yours be?