University of Alabama English To Kill a Mockingbird Essay – Description
Format the document double-spaced. Make sure to organize. Introduction. Break up into paragraphs end with close/conclusion.
Section I—Identifications
Explicate four of the following quotations by interpreting the passage’s
meaning and larger significance within each of the works from which it
was excerpted. Please answer one from each of the works that we have
discussed thus far, including The Crucible, Bartleby the Scrivener, Inherit
the Wind, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Each explication should be a well-
organized response of between 150 and 500 words.
Answer 4 of the questions out of the total 8 listed below in Section I.
1. Thus life went forward on San Piedro. By Pearl Harbor Day there were eight
hundred and forty-three people of Japanese descent living there, including twelve
seniors at Amity Harbor High School who did not graduate that spring. Early on
the morning of March 29, 1942, fifteen transports of the U.S. War Relocation
Authority took all of San Piedro’s Japanese-Americans to the ferry terminal in
Amity Harbor.
They were loaded onto a ship while their white neighbors looked on, people
who had risen early to stand in the cold and watch this exorcising of the Japanese
from their midst—friends, some of them, but the merely curious, mainly, and
fishermen who stood on the decks of their boats out in Amity Harbor. The
fishermen felt, like most islanders, that this exiling of the Japanese was the right
thing to do, and leaned against the cabins of their stern-pickers and bow-pickers
with the conviction that the Japanese must go for reasons that made sense: there
was a war on and that changed everything.
2. The morning Charles Manson was to be freed, he begged the authorities to let
him remain in prison. Prison had become his home, he told them. He didn’t think
he could adjust to the world outside.
His request was denied. He was released at 8:15 A.M. on March 21, 1967, and
given transportation to Los Angeles. That same day he requested and received
permission to go to San Francisco. It was there, in the Haight-Ashbury section,
that spring, that the Family was born.
3. BARBARA: You understand what happened had to happen. It couldn’t have
turned out any other way. A woman’s depressed—with herself, with life. With her
husband, who had made life possible for her, until he was bewitched by another
woman. A destroyer. Abandoned. Like someone left for dead. She plans her
suicide, until the dream begins. In the dream, the destroyer is destroyed. That’s a
dream worth living for. Now, with such simplicity, such clarity, everything falls into place. It must be a crime that her husband can declare unsolved and be believed by all the world.
4. JODI: I feel like there are a lot of women who have been through something
with him. But they find it hard to talk. And those who do talk to me, don’t want to
go on the record. In your previous stories, how did you persuade women to tell
you what had happened to them?
MEGAN: So it’s difficult. They’re terrified. A case I made was, “You know, I
can’t change what happened to you in the past, but together, we may be able to
use your experience to help other people.” The truth, basically.
5. The accused man, Kabuo Miyamoto, sat proudly upright with a rigid grace,
his palms placed softly on the defendant’s table—the posture of a man who has
detached himself insofar as this is possible at his own trial. Some in the gallery
would later say that his stillness suggested a disdain for the proceedings; others
felt certain it veiled a fear of the verdict that was to come. Whichever it was,
Kabuo showed nothing—not even a flicker of the eyes. He was dressed in a white
shirt worn buttoned to the throat and gray, neatly pressed trousers. His figure,
especially the neck and shoulders, communicated the impression of irrefutable
physical strength and of precise, even imperial bearing. Kabuo’s features were
smooth and angular; his hair had been cropped close to his skull in a manner that
made its musculature prominent. In the face of the charge that had been leveled
against him he sat with his dark eyes trained straight ahead and did not appear
moved at all.
6. Left behind were the puzzle pieces. But this time at least a partial pattern was
discernible, in the similarities: Los Angeles, California; consecutive nights;
multiple murders; victims affluent Caucasians; multiple stab wounds; incredible
savagery; absence of a conventional motive; no evidence of ransacking or
robbery; ropes around the neck of two Tate victims, cords around the necks of
both LaBiancas. And the bloody printing. Yet within twenty-four hours the police would decide there was no connection
between the two sets of murders.
7. JODI: We’re looking at extreme sexual harassment in the workplace. These
young women walked into what they all had reason to believe were “business
meetings” with a producer, an employer. They were hopeful. They were expecting
a serious conversation about their work, or a possible project. Instead, they say he
met them with threats and sexual demands. They claim assault and rape. If that
can happen to Hollywood actresses, who else is it happening to?
8. SANDY: We speak now, tonight, and then these things are never spoken of
again, agreed? Larren’s divorce left him in a state of disorder. He was drinking
much too heavily, and he fell into a relationship with a beautiful, but self-serving
woman. The fact is, Larren grew suicidally depressed. He wanted to resign his
post. Raymond Horgan talked him out of it.
SECTION 2 ESSAY.
Please respond to one of the following questions below. Be sure to use textual evidence and primary citations in your answer to support your argument, as well as provide a topic sentence regarding your perspective about any two of the works that we have discussed thus far, including The Crucible, Bartleby the Scrivener, Inherit the Wind, and/or To Kill a Mockingbird. Your essay should be a well-organized response of between 600 and 1,000 words.
ANSWER 1 of the 3 questions in section 2.
1. American poet Robert Frost once quipped that “a jury consists of twelve
persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.” Drawing upon the
depictions of defense attorneys and prosecutors in the aforementioned books
and/or films, discuss the ways in which the quality of legal representation impacts
the course of the proceedings in each book. In what ways do the lawyers’
personalities and ethical mindsets affect the outcomes of their respective trials?
Be sure to use specific textual evidence in your response.
2. William Penn once wrote that “in all debates, let truth be thy aim, not victory, or
an unjust interest.” Discuss the ways in which a search for truth is depicted in the
narratives of the aforementioned books and/or films. Consider, in particular, the
roles of “heroic” lawyers in questing for the truth in spite of the challenges
presented by their communities. What obstacles do they face, and ultimately
overcome, in exploiting the legal system as a means for securing justice and
establishing larger senses of truth? Be sure to use specific textual evidence in your
response.
3. Discuss the depiction of lawyers and/or the legal profession. What does the
characterization of these figures in the aforementioned books and/or films say
about the nature of the legal profession? In what ways do the authors under
review provide positive depictions of lawyers and/or the law? By contrast, in what
manner do these characterizations act as forms of negative critique of the legal
profession? Be sure to use specific textual evidence in your response.
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