Bad Habits

Jem lost a bet to Dill. This may not sound like much on the surface, but below it is really concerning for Jem. He played poker with Dill for his shirt, and he lost. Dill has the shirt now. Atticus and Miss Rachel now know about this bet and they scolded the two on betting. Atticus tells Jem and Scout never to try to gamble and bet on anything in a nice tone, but Miss Rachel is a little more strict. She tells Dill that if anymore of this stuff happens, he will get a severe punishment. This behavior from Jem and Dill show that they are falling victim to peer pressure and extra steps need to be taken to subdue them. Most teenagers experience them, with me being in that group of people, so I understand what the two are going through. I am concerned about Dill though. He is not a teen, but he is already experiencing the negative changes. This may be due to his parents divorce, and their wanting for him to be gone.

It seems like Dill and Jem have not learned their lesson for messing with Boo Radley's life. The very next day, they try to sneak into the house. When they get in, they are greeted by Nathan Radley, Boo's brother, holding a shotgun, who walks into the front door. Miss Maudie is in there with him, as well as Miss Rachel and Atticus. They are told about a story that Nathan shot at a black man, but didn't kill him, because he thought he was going to be robbed. The next thing that he hears, he will shoot at, and kill. At night, Jem thinks it is a good idea to sneak into the Radley house again, but Atticus catches him, and sends him back. This is another bad habit both Jem and Dill have. They did not learn their lesson, even after getting caught. Jem even risked his life for it. This is another thing that teens have a problem with. They try to do stupid stuff for popularity, and they would risk their life for belongings, like a phone.

Did Boo Radley Put Things in the Knothole of the Tree?

   In the recent chapters we learn more about the children's obsession with Boo Radley. It really deepens as they find things in the knothole of the tree. The children appear greedy rather than trying to seek out the person whose stuff it is or leave it alone, they decided to keep it unless someone tells them to return it or the real owner asks for it. It seems only to benefit their self-interest and does not help whoever put these things their. Though I am not certain as from reading it I am not certain as to if they are doing this hoping to keep it or waiting until the end of the summer trying to be considerate though not trying to contact him seems a little selfish.

   Though more on Boo Radley the children reenact a game called Boo Radley which Atticus later calls them out on. It is reenacting all the rumors and gossip spread about a neighbor who never shows his face out of embarrassment which you put on display for the edifice of the entire neighborhood. It only strengthens his resolve to not show his face, but Harper Lee really seems to be hinting that Boo Radley is alive and watching them sometimes, but not in a creepy way I assume. The evidence we got for that in the last few chapters were that their was laughing when Scout rolled in a tire and hit the his front door. Another piece of evidence is that there was a shutterflick when Jem knocked on his door implying he opened the blinds to peer at them and then shut right away when they turned back after running from him.  If that was Boo Radley at the blinds it brings up the question as you learn in chapter five, could the knothole in the tree with a lot of stuff be from Boo Radley? There are a few points that indicate it could be his, first of all it is in his backyard, and though only children they assume hide things Boo Radley being as weird as they think him to be could put it in the knothole. It is also very weird things for a kid to have. Indian coins maybe if they are religious and have some meaning there though I assume they are just an item Boo Radley wanted to keep hidden. Though I think the second most probable option I have heard is that a squirrel just found those things and put it in the knothole of the tree. It would explain having an Indian head coin, but a huge problem I see with this is how the squirrel could bring gum to the tree. That is what really seems to shoot this theory down. Another one that I think is the most probable option is that it is from some random person we have not met, we are only five chapters into the book so it would not be too out of the ordinary.

TKAM Post

In chapter four, a lot of things happened with the idea of Boo Radley. First of all, Scout found gum in the hole of the tree that was in front of the Radley Residence. This is quite odd, since not a lot of people go that way. Scout wanted to chew it of course, so first, she licked it. When she didn't die, she proceeded to chew it. Jem then told her to spit it out because it's unsafe to chew/eat things you find on the ground. When Jem and Scout are walking past the Radley Residence, they find something else. They find a little box with Indian Head pennies in them. These are like good luck tokens described by Jem. He doesn't suspect it's any adult's, so he proposes the idea of keeping them until school starts again. Finally, at the end of the chapter we find out Scout heard something in the Radley Residence. When she was in the tire, rolling down the street, she had gotten up, and she swore she heard someone laughing within the house.

My first impressions are, why aren't they more suspicious about the gum? I'd be a little scared if there was just random gum in a the hole of a tree. Also, I'm not so fond of scout picking it up and deciding to eat it. It was safe, but it's not a really great thing to get used to in the future. I am happy that Jem did the smart thing and told Scout to spit it out. Second of all, why wouldn't they leave the box in the tree? It is not theirs, and it's not right to steal. They're old and hold value to someone, and someone is aware they left it there, so leave it there. However, I am a little bit worried about the laughing inside the house. Who would've that been? Doesn't that mean the person was watching them the whole time? This worries me. At the near end of the chapter, Dill, Scout, and Jem are running out of games to play. They decide to make one about the Radleys over the summer. They make a lot of assumptions however, while doing so. I think this is them being ignorant to the fact that they've never met Boo Radley, yet they are believing all of the rumors.

TKAM Chapter 4

          Scout was been seeing and hearing this inside of the Radley house. Jem and Scout have heard many rumors about the Radleys. After Jem touched the Radley's house, Scout looked back at the house and she saw the shutters move. Scout and Jem found a purple box in a tree next to their house and they found gum and pennies in it. They thought it was somebody's hiding spot, but then they realized that no one would hide their. Everyone avoids the Radley house except for Scout and Jem because they have to walk right by it to get to their house. When Scout landed in the Radley's yard with the tire, she heard laughing inside of the house. Scout doesn't tell anyone and keeps it a secret to herself. This could be Boo Radley who has been doing all of this or it could be one of the other Radleys. Jem and Scout have been trying to figure out things about the Radleys.
             After Jem, Scout, and Dill had Lemonade, Jem decides that they play a game. The game is that they are going to be like the Radleys and act like them. This game lasted for awhile and they started to act like other people. They have acted out the rumors that people thought the Radleys did. The longer that the game went on, the more that they acted like the Radleys. One day while they were playing the game, Atticus saw Jem with the scissors cutting up the newspaper and asked what he was doing. Jem kept the game a secret from Atticus and Calpurnia because if they knew about the game, Scout, Jem, and Dill will get in trouble. Atticus was asking if this had to do with the Radley's because Atticus thinks that it is disrespectful. Scout doesn't want to play the game anymore because she is tired of the yelling and all of the head shaking. The other reason is that she doesn't want to get in trouble with Atticus.

Friendship

Today in class we have just finished reading chapter four on To Kill A Mockingbird. Sofar I think that the book is very interesting I think that Harper Lee’s writing style is unique and something that I’m not really used to. A few things have happened in chapter four but the thing that I will talk about today is at the end of the chapter when Dill, Scout, and Jem are playing a game. The game is of course about Boo Radley that Jem has made up. Scout played Mrs. Radley, Dill was Mr. Radley and Jem of course played Boo himself. Dill, Scout and Jem reenacted rumors that were spreaded around town. One of the rumors being that Boo stabbed his father in the leg with a pair of scissors randomly when he was cutting paper for his scrapbook.

The children showed this in their game by having Jem cun pecis of newspaper and the fake stab Dill. I have really enjoyed this book so far because I think is shows the importance of friendship. The ending of chapter four shows how the children use their games and creativity to understand the real world. I rely on your friends to help you understand the world. I think that now during this time period we take friendship for granted. People are very untrusting and lonely because they think that having close friends in the book is not apart of the real world. This can even go back to the fact that people are losing their child innocence to fast. As you lose your childhood innocence you start to realize that people can turn on you or just not respect you for who you are. This is why I admire and aspire to have a friendship like Scout, Jem and Dill.

End of Chapter Four

  Jem retrieved the tire from the front of the Radley house steps, said it was mortifying for Scout to act like a girl, and then Calpurnia calls them for lemonade which was when he came up with the next activity he thinks they should do. He called their game "Boo Radley," Scout will be Mrs. Radley and all she had to do was sweep the porch, Dill was the late Mr. Radley and would cough whenever Jem spoke to him, and Jem would be Boo, he would go under the front steps and shrieked and howled from time to time. Over the summer they added more bits to their game, rumors such as that Mrs. Radley was beautiful before marrying Mr. Radley, and she cries all the time while Boo whittles away all the furniture in the house. While they were doing Chapter 15, Book Two of One Man's Family, they didn't see Atticus standing nearby. He asked them what they were doing, and why they had the scissors then if they weren't doing anything. Jem responds they weren't doing anything, and Atticus takes the scissors, and asks them if what they were doing had anything to do with the Radleys. Jem said again that they weren't doing anything, Atticus says he hopes they weren't, and heads back inside the house. Scout tell Jem she thinks that Atticus knows anyway that they were poking fun about the Radleys, which he then tells her that she was being a girl, and no one likes girls because they always imagine things. Scout hadn't wanted to play the games for two reasons, Atticus coming had been the second. The first had been the day she rolled into the Radley front yard in the tire. Through all the other noise and nausea, she had barely heard it, but inside the house, someone had been laughing.
  I thought it wasn't really nice of Jem to say those things to Scout about girls, that everyone hates them and they always imagine things and all. Half of the human population is female, and Scout is her own person, she can say whatever she wants. It also wasn't very kind of Jem to yell at her to retrieve the tire from the Radleys'' front yard when he was the one who pushed her to there in the first place. The last part of Chapter four had been a tad scary, because if Mr. Radley is dead, Nathan Radley isn't always in town, only Mrs. Radley and Boo are left in the house, and from what we know so far, Mrs. Radley doesn't seem to be one to laugh at little kids getting sick from rolling in tires. At the end of Chapter one, somebody in the house had flicked a shutter for a second, so we know Scout wasn't imagining someone laughing in the house.

Chapter Four (End of the chapter)

At first Jem had a game Idea and it was called Boo Radley. They played it by Scout being Mrs. Radle, but then she said that she is not sure she wants to play. Then Jem told her that if she is still scared about Boo Radley. Then she decided to play her role was just to be Mrs. Radley and come in and sweep the porch. Dill was Mr. Radley and all he had to do was just walked up and down the sidewalk and coughed when Jem spoke to him.

Jem was Boo Radley and all he did was under the front steps and shrieked and howeld from time to time. Then they were still playing and then one time Atticus came in and saw them playing Boo Radley.  He ask what were they playing and Jem just said nothing and Scout just did not say anything. Then Atticus saw the scissors and told Jem what were they for and Jem just said nothing and Atticus took the scissors and he also ask Jem if this had something to do with the Radleys and Jem said no. Then Atticus said he hopes it doesn't, then after Scout did not want to play because one reason is that Atticus and the other is because she heard a laughed inside boo's house.