Illuminator Chapters 17-21

The most important symbolism that I saw in this chapter was Tom Robinson, because people knew that he didn't do the crime. People new he didn't do it but they wouldn't stand up for him because he was a negro and they didn't want a lynch mob to stop by their house after the trial. This is just like the real case of the Scottsboro boys, in that a lot of people knew they didn't commit the crime but they were too scared to stand up and say something. In addition to this symbolism what I saw was that the author works to create a picture through the use of imagery and the dynamic characters. The most important conflict was Man vs. Society. I saw this happening because really it wasn't Mayella against Tom but it was Tom being a black against the entire jury. The jury may have known that he was innocent but they wouldn't stand up for Tom. I think that if Atticus was in our group he would always be kind and not judgmental. He would be composed, and intelligent too. I can see this through the way he behaved in the Tom Robinson case.

Our group talked about how important and how symbolic the Tom Robinson case was. The Tom Robinson case holds a lot of value due to the fact that it directly correlates with real life. Tom Robinson is a representation of the Scottsboro boys. Both of them were accused of doing a crime that they didn't commit and they were both sentenced because they had a white jury. The juries knew that they were innocent but due to the common view that blacks were worth less than whites the people on the jury didn't want to be discriminated against due to their decision. That's mostly all we talked about because that's really what the chapter focused on.

What I found myself thinking about while reading this is that it doesn't matter what race, religion, or gender you are, you should be treated equally and fairly by everyone. I thought about this because it made me mad that Tom was send to prison then shot even when he didn't do a thing wrong. If the people on the juries in both the Tom Robinson and Scottsboro boys cases had thought about what is right, they may have made a different decision and changed history.