McCampLeggBell discussion

Finished the book a little while back (did enjoy it)and sorry, I've taken my time to come up with any questions or rather discussion on the book. (I found that I wasn't able to navigate the site properly and couldn't find where I wanted to go??!!)

A n y w a y - as this is my first time ever doing this, they could be rather amaturish but too bad I say.

1. Many of the characters in the book must have been important to the story otherwise they wouldn't have been in it. What did you think of Aunt Alexandra? Did she have any impact on you in the context of the book?

2. Mr Raymond pretends he is drunk to help people cope with his mixed marriage. Do you think it is to help others cope, or to help him to cope with others?

3. (Would have to be in most discussions hey?) Who is your favorite character and why?

jump on in - click as many buttons as you can - you can't break anything here! ... you seem to have it sorted now though - let me know if you need help

amaturish smamaturish - do i need to remind you about our goals? ... being a pro ain't one of them Karen ... just have fun

a n y w a y ...

aunt alexandra has grown on me - it took me a little while (and the experience of raising a girl of my own) to really appreciate why she was there ... yes you start out tutting at her trying to put poor scout in a pretty girlie box ... but she's only trying to give scout the skills she needs to fully function in society ... and yes i cheered when cousin francis split scout's knuckle to the bones with his front teeth - but aunty alex was there to teach scout to use her head instead of her fists - balance her out a little - yin and yang kinda thing ...

now question 2 is a pretty interesting one ... and i think it's probably a little of both (yes i have a dent in my bum from sitting on the fence) ... the way mr raymond explained it was that the drink gave him a legitimate excuse for his marriage ... when you're a drunk you don't have a lot of pride so being married to a negro made sense (in their tiny minds) ... but in a time when that kind of behaviour was likely to get your strung up - pretending to be drunk probably meant you got overlooked by the bullies in the same fashion ...

awh my favourite character is atticus ... he is such a wise and gentle character who had such a keen sense of right and wrong and what to do about it ... what's not to love in a father figure ... dill's next after atticus - that he adored scout enough to openly promise to marry her ... but could then be such a stinkie boy with jem and exclude her completely ... just the kinda boy i'd fall in love with ...

i'm left wondering a little more about uncle jack ... not that it matters - but i wonder if he is gay

what do you think Karen? :o)

I found Aunt Alexandra to be a character that was just there. I found I didn't take a lot of notice of her (probably a little like Scout. Funny that really, because since thinking about it, she came to live with them to give the kids a 'mother' - certainly one that could teach Scout to be a girl and not just another 'man' in the household.

I liked Mr Raymond. You could just about see his cheeky grin when he offered his brown paper bag with the drink to the kids. My opinion is that if you are embarrassed being with someone (which pretending to be a drunk to excuse it kind of suggests that he was) you shouldn't be with them, but in Mr Raymonds case, I tend to lean towards the idea that he did it to save the 'white southerners' from that embarrassment and not knowing how to deal with him. I think that he was more considerate of other peoples comfort than anything else.

My favourite character was Scout - she had spunk!! I love two scenes in particular - one where Atticus was outside the gaol when Tom had been taken there and all the guys turned up (to probably lynch Tom). THe way she so innocently talked to Mr Cunningham (I think it was??. She turned a potentially nasty scene into one where she shamed (Mr Cunningham in particular) them into turning around and leaving. The other scene that I loved was where she realised that the man that carried Jem home was Boo. She reacted so beautifully and showed a maturity well beyond her years.

Funny you should say that about Uncle Jack - he was another character that was a peripheral in my eyes. Wasn't important in the way I read the story. Gay man back in those days - gosh - he'd be pretending to be drunk too just to allow the others to excuse him??!!