Tag: tom robinson

Why Can Someone Be Guilty and Innocent at the Same Time?

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Before reading the book:

I think someone can be guilty and innocent at the same time because they might be guilty in the eyes of people but innocent in reality. This happens when people get blamed for something they haven’t done. For example, someone blaming another for doing something wrong. The blamed person is considered guilty in the eyes of the blamer but innocent if he didn’t actually do anything wrong.

During the reading of the book:

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird Tom Robinson is guilty in the eyes of the white people but innocent in reality because he didn’t actually rape Mayella. However, nobody believes him.

” ‘Scared of arrest, scared you’d have to face up to what you did?’

‘No suh, scared I’d hafta face up to what I didn’t do.’ ” (Lee 265)

This quote shows how the judges immediately assume he is guilty just because he is of a different color. In reality, however, he is innocent but nobody will believe him.

” ‘Now don’t you be so confident, Mr. Jem, I ain’t ever seen any jury decide in favor of a colored man over a a white man….’ ” (Lee 279)

Reverend Sykes knows for sure that there is no chance for Tom Robinson because the judges always take the whites’ side. This shows how much racism and prejudice there is in the town. Even when he is innocent, he will always be guilty in the eyes of the white men.

“It was Jem’s turn to cry. His face was streaked with angry tears as we made our way through the cheerful crowd. ‘It ain’t right,’ he muttered, all the way to the corner of the square where we found Atticus waiting.” (Lee 284)

This quote took place after the trial. Tom Robinson was considered guilty. Even after the whole entire speech Atticus had given, not one single white man thought that Tom Robinson was innocent. He was guilty in the eyes of the whites but innocent in reality.

An article named Innocent but Guilty talks about a few men who had served in prison for many years only to be found innocent in the end. An example is a man named Fred Steese. He spent two decades in a Nevada prison for murder. However, closer inspection in the case led to new evidence. They found out that Fred Steese was hundreds of miles away from the place of the crime so he couldn’t have been the killer. So, they took the case to court all over again. So, poor inspection in the beginning led to wasting twenty years in prison.

After reading the book:

After reading the book, I have come to the conclusion that being guilty and innocent at the same time is possible. It is possible because you can be guilty in the eyes of the court and the people even though you are innocent. This type of issue still happens in our world today. Many people are accused of being guilty because of the lack of strong evidence.

Written by: Layal Fateh

Strange Fruit

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The poem “Strange Fruit” demonstrates the injustice towards Negroes in the South, and specifically, in Maycomb, in the book To Kill a Mockingbird.

Strange Fruit

Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swingin’ in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees

Pastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulgin’ eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burnin’ flesh

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop

In the novel, Tom Robinson was falsely accused of rape, even though the facts proved him to be innocent. However, he was still convicted because he was a black man, and the jury would not choose a Negro over a white man, even if Mr. Ewell had a notoriously bad reputation.

This poem demonstrates the injustice that the Negroes had to endure because of their color. They were”hanged” and were thrown under the bus when the whites had conflicts, similarly, to when Mr. Ewell abused his daughter, Mayella. To hide up the bruises and marks, the Ewells most likely brought Tom into the mess and then proceeded to accuse him of raping Mayella.

The Ewells were aware that even if all of the facts pointed to Tom’s innocence, the jury would not listen to the word of a black man over a white man. Even with this in mind, they accused him anyway because of his skin color, despite his innocence.

This prejudice is the “strange fruit,” for the Ewells believed that it would not affect them in any way if they accused an innocent Negro, because their skin was white, and everybody would choose them in a trial over the blacks.

 

Written by Alessandra Nguyen

Dinner and the Verdict

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Chapter 21 of To Kill a Mockingbird begins with Calpurnia passing a note to Atticus during the trial. It turns out to be from Aunt Alexandra, who informed him that his children were missing since noontime. Mr. Underwood speaks up to tell him that they had been sitting on the balcony the whole time.

Atticus sends his kids home for dinner, but allows them to come back after to see the verdict. On the whole walk home, Calpurnia scolds them for their actions and is extremely furious with them. Aunt Alexandra “met us and nearly fainted when Calpurnia told her where we were. I guess it hurt her when we told her Atticus said we could go back, because she didn’t say a word during supper. She just rearranged food on her plate, looking at it sadly while Calpurnia served Jem, Dill, and me with a vengeance.”

This quote is important because it demonstrates how Aunt Alexandra is adapting and changing her behavior towards the Finch children. Readers would have guessed that she would snap back and comment troublemaking-habits in their behavior, but she remained quiet and compliant.

By the time the children come back to the courthouse, they find that not much has happened in the hour that they were absent. Reverend Sykes tells them that the jury had been out for about thirty minutes to discuss whether Robinson was guilty or not.

For three hours, the children wait in the courthouse for any change, but nothing happens until the jury come back into the room at 11 o’clock.

“I saw something only a lawyer’s child could be expected to see, could be expected to watch for, and it was like watching Atticus walk into the street, raise a rifle to his shoulder and pull the trigger, but watching all the time knowing that the gun was empty.” This quote is important because it shows that Scout knew what the verdict would be, before anybody had even uttered it. It implies a heavy and melancholy despair, and shows that she is adapting to the adult world and leaving her safe childhood behind.

Judge Taylor announces that the jury decided that Tom Robinson was guilty. After packing up and muttering something to Tom, Atticus walks down the aisle, and all of the Negroes stand up in respect as he passes.

There is figurative language used in the chapter. “What happened after that had a dreamlike quality: in a dream I saw the jury return, moving like underwater swimmers…” This quote shows that in Scout’s sleepy, languorous haze of consciousness, she saw the men walking into the room very slowly.

In conclusion, chapter 21 tells of the ending of Tom Robinson’s trial, in which he gets convicted of rape, even if the facts show that he was simply an innocent Negro man who happened to get caught in the midst of the Ewell’s conflicts.

 

Written by Alessandra Nguyen

Testification

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In Chapter 17 of To Kill a Mockingbird, the trial to determine Tom Robinson’s innocence begins. When the children sat down with the other Negroes on the balcony, Heck Tate started to testify. He told the judge and audience that Mr. Ewell had called him after he got out of work to say that Mayella Ewell had been raped by a Negro. He said that he found Mayella on the floor, beat up, and when Tate asked her who had raped her, Mayella had said that it was Tom Robinson.

After giving his witness, Atticus asked Mr. Tate if anybody had called a doctor to check up on her, but the witness said that it wasn’t necessary and there was no doctor on the scene. Atticus questions Heck Tate some more, and Tate said that there were marks and bruises on her arms, neck, and on the right side of her face.

Mr. Ewell was called up to testify. He claimed that he heard his daughter screaming inside the house while he was coming back with kindling. When he ran to the window, Mr. Ewell said to have saw Tom Robinson raping Mayella. While chaos commenced in the courtroom, Reverend Sykes told Jem that it was best if he took Scout and Dill back home. Jem proclaimed that Scout was too young anyway to understand anything that was happening, which Scout denies.

When Mr. Gilmer continued with the questioning, Mr. Ewell said that he indeed saw Tom Robinson raping his daughter, and that the room was all messed up, “like there was a fight.” When he tried to get inside the house, Tom Robinson had run out of the front door. Mr. Ewell claimed to have been so worried over Mayella that he didn’t chase after Robinson, but after he left, Mr. Ewell called for Heck Tate.

Atticus’ questioning began. Mr. Ewell denied that he got a doctor for Mayella despite her many bruises. He also agreed with everything that Heck Tate had testified, even Mayella’s markings. Atticus told Mr. Ewell to write his name, and proved that Mr. Ewell was left-handed.

On the balcony, Jem is beside himself with joy and victory. “He was pounding the balcony rail softly, and once he whispered, ‘We’ve got him.'” Scout is more reluctant. She understood that Atticus had tried to imply that Mayella had been hit by her own father, but she also brought up that Tom Robinson could have been left-handed, also.

There is figurative language evident in the chapter. Specifically, Scout used an idiom when she said, “I thought Jem was counting his chickens.” She was referring to the full saying, which was “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.” She used this idiom to show that Jem was getting his hopes up too early, and that he should not be so assured that things are looking positive for the defendant.

In conclusion, Chapter 17 tells of the beginning of the trial, where Heck Tate and Robert Ewell gave their testifications.

Written by Alessandra Nguyen

Before the Trial

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In Chapter 16 of To Kill a Mockingbird, the trial of Tom Robinson begins. People all over the small town of Maycomb Country come to watch the trial, except Miss Maudie, Calpurnia, and Miss Alexandra. In the morning, Atticus tells the children that Mr. Cunningham took part of a mob the previous night, but Scout made him stand in Atticus’ shoes and see his perspectives.

Mr. Dolphus Raymond is introduced as something of a rumor and a scandal, because he was married to a black woman and had mixed children. Miss Maudie from the yard across their house declines going to witness the trial, saying that it was like a carnival to go see the black man face a trial to his death. As Jem, Scout, and Dill go to see the trial, they note on Mr. Raymond’s mixed children, and Jem says that if anybody had even a tiny amount of Negro blood in them, they were all black.

While going to find a seat in the courtroom, Scout gets seperated from Jem and Dill, and by the time that they catch up to her, there are no more available seats on the first floor. Reverend Sykes comes along and tells the children that they can sit up on the balconies with him and the other blacks.

By the time that they are settled, Judge Taylor is introduced to be the overseer of the trial. He is described as someone who seemed to take his job casually, but actually is a man of the law. He permitted people smoking in the courtroom, but didn’t do it himself. This analysis concludes Chapter 16.

There is imagery evident in the chapter. “She was now standing arms akimbo, her shoulders drooping a little, her head cocked to one side, her glasses winking in the sunlight. We knew she wore a grin of the uttermost wickedness.” This is imagery because it paints a picture in the reader’s mind of Miss Maudie standing out on her porch and looking on the foot-washer Baptists. The significance of this imagery is to describe Miss Maudie’s personality and how she carries herself.

An example of a simile is “Judge Taylor was on the bench, looking like a sleepy old shark, his pilot fish writing rapidly below in front of him.” This quote compares Judge Taylor to a sleepy shark. This gives the readers insight into what kind of a person Judge Taylor is, and also what he looks like at the present moment.

In conclusion, Chapter 16 was a background check of the current setting and mood before the trial of Tom Robinson.

 

Written by Alessandra Nguyen