- December 27, 2024
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Chapter seven takes place mostly in church, and again we have a mention of Jem, as Jean Louise recalls wearing a hat to his funeral. She seems to think about her brother’s death daily, and it provides an interesting question for any writer: Is it more powerful to write about the death itself and the tragedy as a fresh occurrence? Or is it more powerful to write about the grief that remains forever afterward?
And, is it possible to effectively dramatize the grief only, without dramatizing the death as well — without putting the reader through the same tragedy as the character went through? Most of our experience in life, insofar as it is impacted by tragedy, comes after the tragedy, so in some ways it seems more useful to write about how one deals with the grief for the rest of your life.
The other interesting point is the cultural and class clash between north and south. The preacher in Maycomb is from the north and seems to think that everything in the north is superior. The south’s inferiority complex persists today, although to a lesser degree now that so many southerners are actually transplants from the north.
I think that attitudes toward race have also impacted by this north-south divide. Once the north started to take a stand against racism, the south’s reaction was, “Stay out of our business.” Racism has always been a bigger problem in the south, but it’s likely compounded by that inferiority complex and the human aversion to being told what to do.
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