TKAM Setting

     The reason of why I chose this picture was because Maycomb is said to be farmland and not city wise. In the book on page 5 it says, "Maycom was a tired old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned into red slop; grass grew on sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square." For the part when the book says that the roads turn into "red slop" when it rains I think of a dirt road. In the picture there is a dirt road.

     In the book it said that Maycomb was mostly farmland. In the book on page 21 the book says, "As Maycomb county was farm country,..."  This sentence right here basically says that Maycomb was farmland. In the picture I have chosen, over the fence it looks like farmland because it was a vast and open space with what looks like wheat.

      In conclusion, these are my reasons on why this picture looks like the setting of To Kill A Mockingbird. 

Theme Blog

Prompt:Your blog for your 40 Book Challenge this week will focus on theme. You will need to determine a theme and analyze its development throughout the novel. By looking closely at character's actions, the setting, plot events, and/or the conflict, you can identify clues that are written by the author to help teach you (the reader) a message about life or human nature. Start first by looking at your 'Universal Theme' sheet to help you get started.

Pages read:0-276

The title of the story that I am introducing a theme to is Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. At the setting's time of the story, it was during the Great Depression, it was also a time when people were racist to African Americans. In the story it's focused on an African American family the Logan's. The story itself is in the eyes of Cassie Logan, and throughout the story it shows how it hard it is to be an African American family in that time. They have to go through racism, they are thought of as inferior, and they get bullied by both adults and children. That is where my theme starts. 

The main theme of this book is racism. As the story goes through, even in the first couple of chapters it already shows that they are getting discriminated and bullied because they are African. A character is introduced that is named Lillian Jean and she already is an enemy against Cassie, and the way the story starts, it's most likely that they have been enemies long before the story even  started. One sign of racism in the book is when Cassie is walking in the sidewalk and bumps into Lillian Jean, Lillian Jean ordered Cassie to apologize, and Cassie didn't want to put up with Lillian Jean so she just apologized. Lillian Jean said that an apology wasn't enough so she ordered Cassie to get into the road and Lillian Jean even called Cassie nasty for no reason, "You can't watch where you going, get in the road. Maybe that way you won't be bumping into decent little white folks with your nasty little self." Cassie refused and Lillian Jean tried to throw Cassie into the road herself, but Cassie blocked it but Lillian Jean's dad came and threw Cassie down anyway, his name is Mr. Simms. He told Cassie to apologize to Lillian Jean, Cassie refused and "Big Ma", Cassie's grandmother, tells her to apologize, Cassie struggled for a little bit but she apologized any way. Mr. Simms told her to apologize again but like this, "I'm sorry, Miz Lillian Jean." She didn't want to and Big Ma persuaded Cassie to apologize again, she struggled even more but she did it anyway. That is just pure racism, discrimination, and signs of self superiority. The discrimination came in when Lillian Jean was calling Cassie nasty, and the signs of when the white people thought they were superior was when they thought they could order around Cassie.

Another form of racism showed in the book was when the kids get hand-me-down textbooks or books from the white kids. All the way down there is a condition form, all the way down the textbook was owned by white kids, all the way to the last one which was the poorest condition, and the race of the student was African, but in the form it said, "nigra" and Cassie and her brother got mad because of that. This here is a true form of racism, the white people passed down the old torn up, worn down books because they didn't want them, and then they didn't even bother to call them Africans. They used an offensive word to the African American race. 

In conclusion, the theme of this book was racism, all of my evidence proves that this books theme is racism. The discrimination, the thoughts that African Americans be inferior, and what they call African Americans. It all adds up to racism.