The Lock, Finally

The pages I have read were the very last ones of the book. I must admit, these were the very best ones of the entire novel. However, the ending was sort of disappointing to me.

     The renter, who was the guy writing all those letters, wrote one in which he confessed he was Oskar's grandfather. With this, the mystery of who the letters were directed to was solved, they were aimed to be read by Oskar's dad. I also found out that the letters weren't only sent by the renter, or better said, the grandpa, but also by the grandma, surprising isn't it? On the other hand, Oskar continued his search for the lock, trying never to give up. The last black he visited was Peter Black, a sweet man with a little baby, but not useful regarding the key. Eight months had already passed by when Oskar arrived home that afternoon, to find a surprise he was surely not expecting. Oskar reached towards the phone to hear the messages for the first time since his dad had died. He listened to a message from Abby Black, the second Black he had met. The message stated that Abby wasn't totally honest with Oskar, and that she could help him with the key. But the message was cut. Oskar went to Abby's house to talk to her and find out more about that confusing message. Once he got there, she told him that her ex-husband might be able to help him with the key, and gave Oskar an address were he could find him. Moreover, Abby confessed that she had talked to Oskar's mother, and that she knew everything about the key mission, she knew exactly were Oskar was going every time he left the apartment, and that's why she never asked questions. Oskar went to the address Abby gave him. To make a long story short, he found Abby's husband and found the solution for his key problem. This man told him all about the key and the lock, but unfortunately, nothing about his father. The key turned out to open a safe-deposit box of Abby's ex-husband's father, who had nothing to do at all with Oskar's father. This was a tremendous disappointment for me and surely for Oskar as well.      
      After talking to this man, Oskar went back home, but first he met with the renter to plan how they were going to dig up Oskar's father's grave. The night that finally happened, was one of the hardest nights for Oskar. The renter and Oskar went to the cemetery and started to look for his father's grave. Once they found it, they opened it and found nothing inside, which was nothing knew to Oskar, since he had known his father's body was not found or buried. The renter filled the grave with all those letters he never sent, letters Oskar knew nothing about. That night, Oskar confessed something about the day his father died, he had never told anyone. That afternoon, when he reached home, he heard the messages his dad had left. Afterwards, the phone rang, and it was him, it was his dad, but he didn't answer, he couldn't, and for so felt guilty for his Dad's death. Afterwards, when Oskar got back home, his mother was waiting awake in the living room and for once in a long while they talked like a mother and a son about life. They confessed things to each other and they ended up loving each other just a little bit more.

In these pages I was surprised by how many interesting and meaningful quotes there were. The first one is one originally said by Albert Einstein, but read by Oskar. It goes like this:

"Our situation is the following, we are standing in front of a closed box which we cannot open" (Foer, 305).

I believe Albert Einstein has just described every human's life in a sentence. We all want to unravel our own mysteries and keep on moving with our lives, we want to be strong and fight, but we are not always able to do so. We are always afraid of something, that something might happen or that something might go wrong, and destroy everything we builded. We stand in front of a closer door, box, or what ever it is you want to call it, that we cannot open because of fear. Why are humans so fearful? Why are we always afraid of everything? It is said that when you stop being afraid, you'll start enjoying. And it's true. Why do pass our entire life looking for something we are afraid to find, even if it's right in front of us. Why can't we open that closed box? I don't know, but what I do know is that we must overcome this in order to truly be happy in life, we need to stop being afraid about everything and start actually having fun.

"The mistakes I made are dead to me. But I can't take back the things I never did" (Foer, 309).

This quote reminds me of one I have read before which states that in the end you only regret the chances you did't take. I believe this quote is true. In the moment we need to make a decision on wether we do or not something, we think mainly about two things, what happens if we do it, and what are the consequences of it. Most of the times, we choose not to do that something, if there are severe things that can happen from it, that we might regret later. But are we actually going to regret that something more for doing it or for being too afraid, and not doing it? Life is only one, and moments and opportunities occur once, so take it or leave it, and it's better for you to take it. If you take a chance, it could go wrong, but it could also go right, so what do you prefer? Doing something with the chance of getting it wrong, or not doing it with the chance of getting it right? In the end mistakes
are forgiven and forgotten, but chances never occur twice.

     The book "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close", is a book that is confusing until the end, that keeps you hooked until the very end. Even if the end was sort if disappointing, because of the fact that the key had nothing to do with Oskar or his father, it was still a very emotive ending, with many messages to keep for the rest of my life. The last pages of the book were the ones that I liked the most. They were filled with emotions and events that touched me. This novel teaches people about life from a different perspective, from the perspective of a different boy with a very troubled mind. I believe this book is a very good one that most people should read at least once in their lives.

A Couple More Blacks

To begin this post, I want to clarify, both to you and to myself, something not quite clear of this book. Ever since the beginning, there have been chapters of things I don't understand, and for so, I have skipped this chapters in my previous summaries. However, after reading this week, I have gotten to somewhat understand, what these chapters are all about. These chapters are letters written by someone I hadn't met before, and were directed to a confusing receptor. Bellow, in the summary of this week's reading of the book, I will explain everything I have gotten to understand about these letters and chapters.

      As usual, Oskar kept on looking for the lock the key opened, and the Black it belonged to. First he went to see Agnes Black. It turns out she didn't speak any English whatsoever and she was only fluent in Spanish. For Oskar's good luck, Mr. Black was there to help him translate and communicate with this women. After much conversation, Oskar came to the conclusion she new nothing about the key at all. Then, they met Albert Black, who came from Montana and craved to be an actor, but he didn't want to go to Hollywood. Afterwards, came Alice Black, a women who lived in a building only made for industrial purposes, a place where no one should live, but still had nothing to do with the key. Allen Black was next, he was a doorman with no idea about the key. After, came Arnold Black, who simply stated he couldn't help Oskar at all.
    After the weekend, Oskar went through a terrible week. On Tuesday he had to go to his psychologist to get help with his father's dead, something he didn't understand why he had to do, but did anyways. The rest of the week went by with nothing interesting, until the weekend came again. Oskar and Mr. Black had looked for the key and the lock for six months, and that was one Mr. Black backed out. Oskar felt as if he had just been stabbed right in the heart after this happened. He felt empty and lonely all over again. It was then Oskar knew he had to talk to someone about what was going on, and that someone was his Grandma.

     He went over to her apartment, only to find she wasn't there. The only human habituating the place in the moment was his Grandma's renter. He was a man named Thomas, with no ability to talk, he couldn't say a word and he had the word "YES" tattooed on his left hand, and the word "NO" tattooed on his right hand. Reflecting back to the mentioned letters, the man who wrote them was named Thomas, just as the renter, and had no ability to speak either. With this, I infer the guy who wrote all those confusing letters was him. After a while of chatting with this man, Oskar felt the need to unburden, and so he did.
       He began telling him the story about the key the lock and all the Blacks he had met. From the ones all ready mentioned before, to Bernie Black, Chelsea Black, Don Black, Fo Black, Georgia Black, Iris Black, Jeremy Black, Kyle Black, Lori Black, Mark Black, Nancy Black, Ray Black (who turned out to be in jail), ending up with Ruth Black, a women who worked in the Empire State Building. Ruth didn't only work as a tour guide on the building, but actually lived there. Even though Oskar met several Black's, he didn't find a single one that had something to do with the key, the lock, or his father. It was after Ruth Black that Mr. Black decided to leave Oskar, once again alone, in his journey to uncover his father's secret. Oskar couldn't sleep that night, so as usual he started inventing, but this time he had a shocking idea, to dig up his father's empty coffin.

I have to admit that the pages I read this week were not the ones mostly filled with great quotes, however, there were a couple that stood out to me. The first quote goes like this:

"Life is impossible" (Foer 201).

    This quote stood out to me because I believe every one of us has said this before. When we are having a hard time, we all say life is impossible, we all believe we won't make it through our issues and we all believe our lives are way too hard. In my opinion, life is simple, but we insist on making it complicated. Us, humans, spend our time stressing out about everything, running from one place to another, doing one million things at the same time, without stopping and looking at what surrounds us every once in a while. Life was made for the wellbeing of humans, not for them to break down everyday because of it. Is life really impossible? No. Life is not
very hard, even worst impossible. If we try our best everyday, if we live happily, if we are in peace with ourselves and with others, if we aren't rushing life and if we stop and look around to what is beside us, life will be real simple, trust me.

The second quote I found interesting was the following:

"I knew it was there, I just couldn't see it" (Foer 252).

    The moment I read this quote, I had a flashback on, basically, my entire life. It happens almost everyday to me, that I am looking so badly for something, that I know is standing right in front of my eyes, that I just can't see. I am almost sure this has happened to many other people as well. For me, it is really frustrating to not be able to achieve what I want, or get to where I want, just because I can't
see what I want, even if it is right in front of me. It might seem rather illogical for this to occur, but those are the facts of what happens in life, at least in my life. I know things are there, but I just can't see them. Sometimes I wish I knew how to fix this or end with it, but I don't have a single idea on how to do so. It feels like if I'm suddenly, unintentionally, blind to what I want to see.  

   To finalize this post, I want to admit that these chapters were not my favourite ones so far, but were still very interesting and compelling. With these pages, my interest was shifted a little, from uncovering the lock mystery, to uncovering the letters mystery. The letters are far more confusing than everything else in the book, and now that I have a new clue on who is the person that wrote them, I am one step closer to discovering the reality of them, one step closer to solving one more mystery.

One Step Closer

One step closer to the final destination.

After the discovery Oskar makes about the key, he begins his adventure headed towards finding the lock the key opens and the person it belongs to. And so he starts his journey, by going all over New York finding the Blacks'. Oskar's first stop was Abby Black. She lived in a very nice home, with many images of animals and was an epidemiologist. She was indeed very kind, but knew nothing about the key or about what it could open. The next Black Oskar visited was Abe Black. He forced Oskar to get into his first rollercoaster, and later that day took Oskar back to his home, but again disappointment came, since this Black knew nothing about the key, the lock, or his father. After Abe, Oskar visited Ada Black. Ada was very rich, actually was the 467th richest person in the world, and owned two Picasso paintings. She lived in what Oskar calls "the most amazing apartment he had ever seen." Still, she knew nothing about the key at all. Afterwards, Oskar visited the next Black, who turned out lo live right upstairs from his apartment. He was a very old man, actually about 100 years
old. This Black, who Oskar calls Mr. Black, had lived through almost all history, and had gone through many experiences. Anyway, now he never left his house. Oskar felt pity for the old man and decided to offer him something incredible. Said offer was for him to accompany Oskar in his journey to find the lock the key opens and the person it belongs to, an amazing adventure that will forever change the course of Oskar's life. Later that night Oskar gets in a terrible fight with his mother, in which he states before her, that he would have preferred she died instead of his father. With this his mom walks away, and it takes a great deal of effort for Oskar to try and take back what he said.

While I was reading this book, I encountered a couple of quotes I found interesting and very meaningful. The first one goes like this:

"I miss what I already have, and I surround myself with things that are missing" (Foer 174).

This is how people nowadays are, with eyes only for money
and materials. 

This quote for me reflects and can connect clearly to the society of nowadays and how people now tend to fill themselves with meaningless, empty things. Think about materialism, it's the same concept. Us, humans try to fill the voids in their lives with materials. We want to buy happiness, but happiness can't be bought. We want to end with our loneliness and our lack of love with materials, but materials don't have emotions, materials can't think, they can't keep us company. Materialism is not equal to happiness, it doesn't express joy and nor does it fill the empty voids of life. We fill our lives with empty things, meaningless things, and we try to replace what we really care about with them. Like the quote states, we miss what we already have. We miss love and family, we crave for happiness and company, without realizing all those things stand right before us, and we have to simply open our eyes to see them. But we are blind, we are blind for real life, and we can only see the endless cycle of materialism we live through today. We now, like the quote states, surround ourselves with things that are missing, with things that aren't what we want, things that try to make us want what we already have, make us get what we don't really need. But who can change this endless cycle of emptiness, only we can change it for ourselves.

The second quote I found was the following:

"... there are so many times when you know you are feeling a lot of something, but you don't know what the something is" (Foer 163).

I really liked this quote, and not because it has a very deep meaning, but because I experience this very often. There are days when I feel something in my stomach, moving around, not allowing me to be in peace with myself, without having a cue n what it is. By having no idea on the why of its existence, there is no way for me to solve it, or end with it. It keeps bugging me, and it doesn't stop. I have, at times, reached the conclusion that it is a simple mixture of emotions I can't control. But at
other times, I don't know what it is that I'm feeling, and I wish it would just stop. Feeling a lot of nothing or everything at the same time, is not very pleasant, since you are in a constant inner struggle between trying to find out what that something is, trying to solve or end with it, or trying to forget and move on. I can connect my everyday life with this quote, and that for me makes a good book. If the reader can connect with the text quite often, the book will be more reader-friendly, it will be much more pleasant to read, and that is what this book is doing with me.

This is what pops right into my head when this occurs to me.

As farther as I continue to read, as interesting the book gets. With discoveries and the rising of new mysteries, "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" continues to surprise me and intrigue me. I just want to keep on reading, but not only to find out more about the key, the lock, or its owner, but to uncover all the mysteries Oskar has inside him, everything that is still hidden. I want to find out more about the lives of all the Blacks' he meets and mostly I want to meet the one Black the key is related to.
  

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," by Jonathan Safran Foer, is a book that has confused me since the first chapter. This is because it talks about several things at the same time and it implicitly makes references to the past, which results pretty confusing to me. However, this book has also been interesting since the very beginning.
Nine-Year old Oskar Schell, a boy from New York City, with a peculiar taste in life, who questions almost everything and adores his father, is going through shock in his life which starts to lead him towards an amazing, mysterious journey. His father died in the World Trade Center in the morning of September 11th, leaving a void deep in his heart. Oskar who now only lives with his mother, began searching through the closet of his beloved father. As he did so, he noticed a bizarre and pretty blue vase, which he desired to grab, and by trying to do so, he throws the vase to the ground. As it cracks open, Oskar encounters an envelope with the word Black, written in red. As he opens the envelope, he finds a key unlike any other. As anyone would have done, Oskar begins to try the key on every single lock of the house. Unfortunately, he was unsuccessful. He begins to wonder what that key could mean, or what did it open. After some time of investigation, Oskar finds out that the word Black was not referring to the color, but to a name. With this Oskar researches and finds 216 different addresses of people with the name Black in New York. This sets the start of an amazing journey this nine-year old boy will embark to unravel the secret of the key, and get one step closer to his father.

As I was flipping through the pages of this book, I encountered a quote I found interesting for its meaning. It states the following:

This is how Oskar feels everyday when he leaves home. 

"Every time I left our apartment to go searching for the lock, I became a little lighter, because I was getting closer to Dad. But I also became a little heavier, because I was getting farther from mom." (Foer 52)

This quote makes me question what is better, specially for Oskar, between getting away from his mom, who in the end, is basically the only thing he has left, to chase the memory of his dead father, or to stay with her and let him go? It is a tough decision because of the fact that Oskar adored his father and never had that relationship with his mother. Anyway, his mom is what he has now, its what he should cherish and adore. I couldn't imagine being in his situation, but If I were, I think I would care a bit more about my mom, and try to get closer to her.  

As I read I found a second quote that seemed interesting to me because of the connection I have with it. The quote goes like this:

"Nothing embarrassed her. I admired that so much, because everything embarrassed me, and that hurt me." (Foer 78)

I relate so deeply with this quote because I am also embarrassed by almost everything. Some of my friends have the personality and ability to do as they wish, even if they look like crazy people, without caring about what others think or being embarrassed. On the other hand, I can't do those things because I am always thinking about how others can think I'm crazy and I get easily embarrassed. I wish I could have my friends ability to walk through life not caring that much about others' thoughts and actions. I want to have the ability to act crazy if I want to and to stop worrying so much about everything, or stop being embarrassed by almost anything.

This is a drawing of Oskar's father falling down from the World Trade Center

To finalize this post I want to state that even if this book has been really confusing to me, it has 

also been intriguing and exciting. I have come to desire knowing what the key opens as much as Oskar. In my opinion, if a book catches your attention since the first chapter, it's going to keep interesting you until the end, and this book definitely grabbed my attention since the very beginning. I am incredibly excited to find out about the key and the lock and everything that comes with it.                                          

                                        

 Here is a video of the movie trailer created after this book. In it, several important things that happen in the initial chapters of the book are represented in a more vivid and relatable way.                                                                                                                                                                                   

                                                                     

Deaths and Surprises

   The end of the suspense, of the intrigue, of the excitement, the end of everything came after I read the last chunk of pages of the novel "To Kill a Mockingbird." So many things were clear in the end, and so many were left mysterious.
    Aunty was having tea with her friends and Scout was there trying her best to be a lady. Everything was going just fine until Atticus arrived. He took Calpurnia, Aunty, Scout and Miss Maudie to the kitchen and told them the terrible news, Tom Robinson was killed in jail when trying to escape. With this they went over to Tom's house and told his wife what had happened. The poor woman fainted into the ground with the shocking news. On the other hand in school Scout was learning about Hitler
since the beginning of the Holocaust was occurring during that precise time. Before people even knew it, Halloween was approaching and Scout couldn't be more excited. Her school teacher
composed a parade in which students had to participate. Scout was to be a ham. She went and created a perfect costume for her. When Halloween arrived no members of Scout's family were going to be present in the school auditorium for the parade, so Jem had to take her. Scout was almost last in the parade, so while she was waiting, she felt completely asleep. In her deep dreams she didn't hear her name being called, so she ended up messing with the whole parade. After everyone left the auditorium, Jem and Scout began heading back home. It was a very dark night and they couldn't see anything except Scout's costume. As they were walking they heard someone walk behind them, but when they stopped, said person stopped as well. After a
while of walking and stopping, this unknown person started running towards them. Many things happened when that person catched them. It was all very confusing, but Jem was hurt and being carried home by someone and Scout also experimented many troubles but managed to reach home by herself. Jem had his arm badly broken and Scout wasn't deeply hurt. Everyone was wondering who was the man behind them and who was the man that saved Jem. It turns out the man behind them was Bob Ewell and he was trying to kill Jem and Scout, and the man that saved Jem was Boo Radley. Maycomb's sheriff investigated the crime scene and found Bob Ewell dead. With Bob death and Boo Radley at Scout's home, everything was getting real weird. The sheriff left the house and Atticus went into Jem's room to see how he was doing, while Scout walked Boo Radley back home.

While I was reading the ending pages of this marvelous book I encountered a quote that made me question a lot, the quote is the following:

"There's a black boy dead for no reason, and the man responsible for it's dead. Let the dead bury the dead this time, Mr. Finch. Let the dead bury the dead." (369)

This is exactly what I thought of and questioned when I read this quote

This quote refers to Tom Robinson and Bob Ewell. To me this phrase is just rare and very confusing. "Let the dead bury the dead." What does that even mean? Was it talking about Tom burying Bob Ewell? This part for me remains a mystery, an unsolved mystery. I find it interesting how Harper Lee decided to kill both characters. To me it shows equality, color equality. I still question why they died.
Was it the right way to end things? Was it not? Did Tom Robinson died for a good reason? Was Bob Ewell just out of his mind, and therefore he died? Did he kill himself or did Jem or Scout kill him? I will never know.    

The second interesting quote I found while reading this pages made me analyze again racism, it goes like this:

"Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed." (323)

First of all, this quote brings back my idea of the extreme racism in Maycomb County. If Tom was dead the minute Mayella opened her mouth it is because Mayella's words will kill him. Her words were white and his were black. If a white and respected lady like Mayella went against a black man like Tom, there was no way of him winning the case or surviving it anyway. This for me is again illogical. Words are words no matter their color. For me, if it's a black man against a white man the chances of any of them winning are exactly equal. There is no color preference. However, in Maycomb, white always won over black.   

This final pages of the book were my favorite ones. These were the pages with the most suspense, action, love and intrigue. This is a novel that teaches about life and about people through the innocent perspective of a child, and that is what makes it so special and unique. "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee is a book that every single person must read. It is a classic and classics are to be cherished.  

Case Closed

    The excitement of the surroundings, actions, characters and the life itself of the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” is increasing at an amazing speed, filling me with more and more intrigue with each word I read. The trail against the Negro Tom Robinson was just about to start. Atticus took his place and then slowly the courtroom started filling. Jem, Scout and Dill found some seats with Reverend Sykes in the Negro balcony. It was a secret that they were there; Atticus had no idea about this. The trial begun with the Ewell witnesses testifying how Tom hit Mayella Ewell and how he took advantage of her. It was common to trust the white men and indeed never trust black folks, so the jury clearly believed every single word the Ewells spoke. Afterwards it was Tom Robinson’s turn to speak about the events of that evening. He actually testifies the complete opposite of what the Ewells had.
He said Mayella asked him for several favors through many days and that one of those days she asked him to come inside her house to fix a chiffarobe. Before he was able to say something or even think about something, Mayella jumped into him, hugged him and kissed hi. As he was trying to leave, Mayella kept forcing him to kiss her back, by the time he was able to ran away, Mr. Ewell approached Mayella and had beaten her up. Even if Tom’s words sounded true, he was black and black men were not to be trusted. It was time for the jury to determine whether or not Tom was guilty, if he weren't, he would be a free man, but if he were, he would be sentenced to death. After a moment Atticus found out that Scout, Jem and Dill were there, however he allowed them to stay to hear the verdict. Hours and hours had passed and still the jury was debating about the evidence presented in the trial. Finally the jury entered the room again and gave the answer to the judge for him to tell everyone the verdict. Guilty, guilty, guilty, was the answer. Tom was to die and the Ewells were to be free, and why? Because they were white and Tom was black.

While I was reading this set of pages, I encountered several quotes that reinforced my opinion about the racism in Maycomb. One of my favorite ones was:

"The witnesses for the state, with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County, have presented to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption-the evil assumption- that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber." (273)

This quote refers to the white folks that testified in court against Tom Robinson. Through this words I can highlight the idea that Maycomb folks thought back then that black men were monsters, almost

White=Black

not even human beings. Here it states what humans thought of black people. In a few words, people thought colored folks were trash meant to be kept away from the fineness of white people. Again I state that this is completely absurd. For me and for most nowadays, black or white are the same thing, both are human. This phrase takes us to the roots of human behavior, showing the minds of humans back then and allowing us to see the minds of the exact same specie in present days. I don't understand the humanity of that time, and I might as well never understand it. Anyways I am most certainly glad those times are more than over by now, at least in an average majority.

A second quote that deeply grabbed my attention while reading these pages stated the following:

"Don't fret, Jem. Things are never as bad as they seem." (288)

  Though this quote talks about a different subject than the one I have been mentioning for the past couple blogs, racism, in a simple sentence it talks about a life-lesson that most of us can say but can't apply. "Things are never as bad as they seem," eight words that we should tell ourselves every morning. This relates to something my dad tells me quite often: "Don't worry too much about stuff,
everything in life can be solved except death, so smile and be happy, life is good." Both the quote from the book and the one from my dad are knowledge imperative for us to include in our lives, no matter how hard it is to do so.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" is a simple love story, said Harper Lee, its amazing author. If this book is what the author says, it's the love story from which I am learning the most lessons about life and about humanity. If this masterpiece of American literature is simple, it is the most amazing and full of life simple novel that teaches more about life than life itself.

Here is a picture I found remarkable at showing the absurdity of discriminating black men:

     

Problems, Problems and More Problems

   With new issues and secrets, new suspense and new surprises, "To Kill a Mockingbird" quickly develops through each page I read. Jem was now twelve and Scout couldn't live with it since Jem believed he was a complete adult and behaved like so, without playing or doing fun things anymore. One Sunday morning when Atticus wasn't home to take the children to church, Calpurnia did so, but instead of taking them to their regular church, she took them to nigger church. By the time mass was over and Calpurnia was walking the kids back home, Jem managed to see their Aunt Alexandra, AKA: Aunty, sitting in their very front porch as if she lived in that house as well. Confusion and

This is how many problems Atticus has now

desperation was running through Scout, for Aunty was not in her best wishes since she criticized every aspect of her. It turned out Aunty will be living there with the complete permission of Atticus to give the kids a feminine presence and set new rules of behavior for them. Anyway, things were not that bad for Scout, one night Dill appeared under her bed. He claimed to have escaped from his father because he mistreated him. Adventures were starting to rise when suddenly the entire trial thing was bringing fun down and problems up. Atticus was acting very different, he had received a visit on the front porch by a man called Mr. Heck Tate, and even if the conversation was unknown, what could be inferred was that it was complete trouble. A few days later he leaves the house in the night and takes the car, an action so rare of him to do. Jem, Dill and Scout followed Atticus through the dark night trying to find out where he had gone. What they found was Atticus sitting in a chair in front of the cell of Tom Robinson and some men in front of him talking. They heard the conversation and immediately sensed trouble.  For this, Scout ran towards Atticus interrupting the entire meeting, Jem and Dill followed. In a moment Scout was able to recognize one of the men as a father of a classmate of hers, and talking to him very innocently she was able to make him rethink about what he was doing and ordered the rest of the men to leave the room. Things were getting real suspenseful, for the next day the trial finally begun.

While I was reading this book, I encountered a quote that made me question humans of the time, and even humanity, it was like this:

“They don't belong anywhere. Colored folks wont have them because they're half white; white folks won't have them because they're colored, so they're just in-betweens, don't belong anywhere. “ (215)

Totally agree, at least with the humanity of that time

   This quote refers to the mixed people, the ones born from white and black folks. This phrase grabbed my attention since it clearly expresses the racism that is held in Maycomb. In my personal opinion the color discrimination is completely wrong and inhumane. I just simply don't understand the difference between black and white people that people saw back in that time. For me it's illogical

to distinguish people from something so insignificant like skin color. What happens if you were black? Were you nothing? Were you even human in the white eyes? Where was humanity in that time?

I also found a quote that has flawless characterization usage:

“As Atticus’s fists went down to his hips, so did Jem’s, and as they faced each other I could see little resemblance between them: Jem’s soft brown hair and eyes, his oval face and snug-fitting ears were our mother’s, contrasting oddly with Atticus’s graying black hair and square-cut features, but they were somehow alike.” (203)

  Harper Lee used such a perfect descriptive language in this sentence that it made both characters, Jem and Atticus have intense characterization. This allows the reader to feel they know the character a whole lot more and that way establish a much deeper connection with it. The ability of Harper Lee to describe characters with such immense amount of detail is surprising and it adds deepness to the story making it more reader-friendly and more interesting. 

"To Kill a Mockingbird" is a book that with a simple topic is able to create a story filled with

For Atticus to win the case is almost as
unlikely as this

intrigue, love, family and with a sense of home. I am more than eager to keep reading to find out what happens with the trial, Tom Robinson and Atticus. Even as unlikely as it is, I really hope Atticus is able to win the case and be proud of being a Nigger-Lover.