Tuesday, August 14, 2012

In To Kill a Mockingbird, where do people show freedom of speech? Pleases give page numbers and quotations (3 examples).

The trial of Tom Robinson is probably the best example of
people speaking freely in To Kill a Mockingbird. Bob Ewell
exercises his right to spew his lies and racist hatred while on the witness stand.
Although Judge Taylor admonishes him for some of his comments, Bob feels free to say
what he thinks, claiming (falsely) that he saw Tom having sexual intercourse with
his daughter.


readability="5">

"--I seen that black nigger yonder ruttin' on my
Mayella!" (Chapter
17
)



Outside the
courtroom, Scout and Dill encounter Dolphus Raymond, who they find delights in allowing
people to think he is drunken and mentally unstable. He is neither. He is passionate
about how badly white people treat Negroes, however.


readability="8">

"Cry about the hell white people give colored
folks, without even stopping to think that they're people, too." (Chapter
20
)



Atticus' final
summation is probably the best example in the novel. He pleads with the jury to put
aside their racial bias and judge Tom from the facts presented in the case. Referring to
Mayella, and her part in the attack,


readability="10">

"She was white, and she tempted a Negro. She did
something that in our society is unspeakable: she kissed a black man. Not an old Uncle,
but a strong Negro man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came
crashing down on her afterwards." (Chapter
20
)


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