English 2H
Ms. Guzman
December 1, 2015
To Kill a Mockingbird Socratic Seminar II
1. The occasions that occurred Sunday night before the trial appears in the book from page 200-206. The mob is trying to lynch Tom because he is black, and he had assaulted a white woman. To them, it jeopardized their ideal world of segregation, and they wanted to terminate that threat. Scout stopped them inadvertently by bringing Mr. Cunningham back to reality. We have read a paper, “The Psychology of Mob Mentality and Violence,” that shows what happens when people are part of a group. People have a tendency to adopt a mob mentality and lose their individualism. Scout brought back Mr. Cunningham’s individuality by talking to him about his life issues. As Atticus said on page 210, “A mob’s always made up of people, no matter what. Mr. Cunningham was part of a mob last night, but he was still a man.” This incident relates to many themes in the story. First, it pertains to the theme of prejudice, for reasons that are evident. Likewise, it relates to Atticus’ teachings of good and bad. He believes that there are some good, and some bad in people. On page 210, Atticus says, “Mr. Cunningham is basically a good man…he just has his blind spots along with the rest of us.” …show more content…
Atticus uses lawyer tricks on his children, such as on page 65 and 66, where Jem was tricked by the “oldest lawyer’s trick on record”. Atticus’ punch line “Do you really think so” is also used on page 195, “This was Atticus 's dangerous question. ‘Do you really think you want to move there, Scout?’ Bam, bam, bam, and the checkerboard was swept clean of my men.” Dolphus Raymond also plays a game. He pretends to be drunk in order to stay with the African American community. He actually just holds a paper bag of cola, which others believe to be whiskey. He does this because others would not understand why he would like the blacks more than his own kind, and the “alcohol” is a reason he gave for