E -learning excersice(Task 1)Linguistic

1) Imagine you are one of the characters. Deliver a speech on what you think of the above question.

Dear students of Hwa Chong Institution,

I am Jem Finch, son of Atticus and brother of Jean Louise Finch. You might wonder what I am doing here. Well, I am here to answer a question. : Is Maycomb a good place to live in? Well, from my perspective, it has good and bad points living in Maycomb County.



Maycomb County has showed me many forms of courage ., which are displayed in my everyday life. For instance, courage is personified by at least 2 people from this small town. These people are Atticus and Mrs Dubose. In the eyes of Maycomb country folks, Atticus is a very courageous person. This was showed in the incident of the Mad dog, Tim Johnson . Everyone was afraid of the mad dog as it might had Rabis, an incurable disease. No one dared to confront the dog except for Atticus, my father. He took the rifle and then shot Tim Johnson. As such, Atticus was hailed as a courageous person.

There is another event that showed how Atticus displayed True courage. He was asked to defend a Negro, Tom Robinson. The White society all considered the Blacks as the worst kind of humans. There was an evil assumption carried by the Whites: “..that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women…” There was a time-honoured code in the society, not to interact with Negroes. Atticus didn’t break this rigid time-honoured code. However, he chose a different path. He chose to help Tom Robinson to win the case, prove to the jury that Tom Robinson is innocent and did not rape a white girl, Mayella Ewell. Atticus dared to do the right thing, dared to end the mad dog’s misery and put Maycomb folks out of danger, dared to defend a Negro, when no one else wanted to .

However, Atticus did not consider himself as courageous. In fact , there was someone whom he considered as “the bravest person who ever lived”.That is Mrs Dubose. The very last journey of her life showed Atticus how brave she was. She was sick, she was weak and she was suffering. Due to her medical condition, she was in so much pain that she resorted to taking morphine a kind of a drug. Atticus knew of this addiction of Mrs Dubose. He then made use of the incident where I destroyed her flowers to give her reading sessions as a form of punishment. Little did I know, Atticus was using me to prolong or extend the time in which she needed to take the morphine to numb the pain. In other words, my readings took her mind off the clock, causing her to have alonger time without drugs and directly helping Mrs Dubose to kick her addiction. Atticus wanted me “to see something abt her-wanted to see what real courage is. Instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. Its when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway , and …see it through no matter what….Mrs Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her..she died beholden to nothing. She was the bravest person I ever knew.”

In Atticus’ eyes, Mrs Dubose displayed Real courage and true one. She set off to do something that seemed unnecessary in other people’s eyes( ppl would usually choose painless death through drugs), in the course of kicking the old habit. She went through cold turkey and withdrawal symptoms, however persisted on. In the end she got what she wanted, which was to die with dignity and “not beholden to drugs”. She did not choose the easy way out which was why Atticus considered her to display True courage. This is why it is a good thing to be living in Maycomb, as it teaches me the true meaning of courage.



However, there are some reasons why living in Maycomb is a bad thing. There are many forms of discrimination in Maycomb. For instance, Racial prejudice and discrimination. Many people insulted Atticus and called him names like “ a good-for-nothing nigger lover” . From this simple example, this shows how discriminating Maycomb is ,racially. This is another way of saying how racist Maycomb County Folks are. There was even one incident where a group of angry mop was waiting outside Tom Robinson’s cell, and wanted to “get rid of him”. Another incident like this shows how violent and harsh Maycomb County Folks are. These are all examples of Racial discrimination. Furthermore, discrimination and prejudice come in other forms like socially and economically. For instance, The assumption that Boo Radley was a viscous and cold-blooded killing machine by the Children. And Yes, I was once one of them. When in fact, he is actually just a very quiet and peaceful person, and even courageous and he fought off Mr bob Ewell and protected me and Scout (my sister) from him. Maycomb also divides the society into different classes, according to the Wealth of each family. Like the cunninnghams and the Ewells, that are catergorised under poor and dirt county folks and thus is treated differently. Hence, this is why living in Maycomb can also be a bad thing.