“Atticus was feeble: he was nearly fifty. When Jem and I asked him why he was so old, he said he got started late, which we felt reflected upon his abilities and manliness. He was much older than the parents of our school contemporaries, and there was nothing Jem or I could say about him when our classmates said, “My father—”
Jem was football crazy. Atticus was never too tired to play keep-away, but when Jem wanted to tackle him Atticus would say, “I’m too old for that, son.” Our father didn’t do anything. He worked in an office, not in a drugstore. Atticus did not drive a dump-truck for the county, he was not the sheriff, he did not farm, work in a garage, or do anything that could possibly arouse the admiration of anyone.
Besides that, he wore glasses. He was nearly blind in his left eye, and said left eyes were the tribal curse of the Finches. Whenever he wanted to see something well, he turned his head and looked from his right eye.
He did not do the things our schoolmates’ fathers did: he never went hunting, he did not play poker or fish or drink or smoke. He sat in the livingroom and read. With these attributes, however, he would not remain as inconspicuous as we wished him to: that year, the school buzzed with talk about him defending Tom Robinson, none of which was complimentary.”
Show how Harper Lee creates mood and atmosphere in the extract above with close reference to the passage.
The WJEC extract question requires a highly organised response in just 20 minutes and is worth 10 marks.
Even if you are well acquainted with the novel and its themes, sometimes the temptation may be to off load as many thoughts and feelings as you can think of, without necessarily linking them to the very focused question. about mood and atmosphere.
So what can you do in order to avoid a breathless, sprint like answer?
Ask yourself just TWO questions.
1) What is the dominant sense in the passage?
2) What do you feel is the main governing idea of the passage?
- These two questions will immediately benefit you and your answer because they anchor a governing idea to a sensory impression.
- This helps you as you will be talking naturally about mood and atmosphere and you will recognize how the creation of mood and atmosphere depend upon the particular sensory impression employed.
- So let’s see how this might work in terms of the passage above.
- This is a difficult passage and is not one I have encountered as WJEC examination question before, therefore I am challenging myself !
- Interestingly I think we HEAR the passage as Scout is repeating her internal dialogue, sharing with the conspiratorial ‘reader’ the many shortcomings/failings of her father.
- We can hear through the use of the long, negative list, the very strong sense of shame experienced by both Scout and Jem with regard to their father’s ‘difference’ from the rest of the community.
- Here, Scout reveals their desire for a more conventional parent who behaves in ways that ‘fit in’ with the community.
- This desire for invisibility and supposed ‘normality’ or orthodoxy seems typical of children and of course gives Harper Lee the dramatic opportunity to challenge such a belief through the killing of the rabid dog and the defending of Tom Robinson, both acts which reveal that Atticus’ difference is heroic rather than pathetically singular/feeble.
- So the dominant sense is hearing and the governing idea seems to be SHAME.
- But what of Atticus’ glasses in this passage? How do the glasses fit in with the SENSE OF LISTENING and the idea of SHAME
The Glasses of Atticus seems to introduce the theme of seeing in a slightly unusual way, perhaps giving the reader the feeling that the glasses are symbolic of something about Atticus that the children have yet to recognise.
- For Atticus is a visionary in that he holds to a version of society where bigotry should hold no place. He is neither racist nor is he sexist. He advocates fairness and compassion and his clear sighted ability to understand others, is ironically revealed by the ‘trope’ of his apparent literal blindness.
- This gives a Shakespearean dimension to the Harper Lee’s characterization of Atticus, as King Lear contains much symbolism around the theme of literal and metaphorical blindness.
- Despite being ‘blind’ he reds and values reading, again emphasizing an investment in the world that is special and educated in the most humane sense.
- Thus, we listen to Scout’s shame about her father’s lack of masculine attributes and then are caught by the sudden reference to his glasses that takes us beyond conventional understanding and into the realms of metaphor/symbolism where we grasp the integrity and true’vision’ of Atticus and his exceptional qualities that both children will come to value