First, I am reading To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and I finished the book. Chapters 24-30 are about Aunt Alexandra’s attempt to make scout more feminine, Helen Robinson’s reaction to Tom’s death, Cecil’s current event about Hitler, Scout and Jem’s pageant, and Mr. Ewell attacking Jem and Scout on their way home. Dill leaves to go back to the Meridian and school starts. Jem gets frustrated easily now because he is going through tough times. In this journal, I will be evaluating “walking in someone’s shoes. ”
As I am reading, I will be evaluating how walking in someone’s shoes is used in the story. First off, Scout walks in the lady’s shoes at the refreshment meeting. She figures out how hard it is to be feminine since she is used to Jem’s ways. In the text, Scout says, “Ladies in bunches always filled me with vague apprehension and a firm desire to be elsewhere, but this feeling was what Aunt Alexandra called being spoiled”(Lee 307). From this, it can be inferred that Aunt Alexandra forces feminism into Scout’s life and Scout wants to make a good impression on the lady’s.
Also, it implies that Scout walks in their shoes and does what they do to be ladylike. Next, Scout gets embarrassed when she makes a mistake around the lady’s. According to lee, Scout says “My cheeks grew hot as I realized my mistake, but Miss Maudie looked gravely down at me”(Lee 307). This statement indicates that Scout is not used to being laughed at by older ladies and gets embarrassed by that. Right after Scout makes her mistake, she brushes it off, which implies that she is learning how to be more feminine.
Adding on to that, Scout says she wants to be a lady when she grows up because she does not want to say something masculine in front of them. Finally, she decides to talk to Mrs. Merriweather because she thinks it would be polite. In the story, Scout states, “Mrs. Grace Merriweather sat on my left, and I felt it would be polite to talk to her”(Lee 308). In this, one can infer that she was speculating what all the other ladies were doing and started to talk to Mrs. Merriweather about what she is interested in.
Also, when Mrs. Merriweather was talking to her, Scout agreed with her for everything she said, which implies that she does not want to provoke her because she was not interested in what she was saying. Therefore, Scout was trying to be polite to her because all ladies are supposed to be polite and have good manners. Not only does Scout walk in the lady’s shoes to be more feminine, but Link Deas walks in Helen’s shoes because he feels she needs some compassion in her life. First of all, Mr. Link Deas gives Helen a job even though he does not need her.
In the text, Lee states, “He didn’t really need her, but he said he felt right bad about the way things turned out”(Lee 333). From this, one can see that Mr Link Deas walked around in Helen’s shoes and thought of how depressing it would be to lose a loved one and take care of her children all at the same time. In my opinion, he did the right thing because giving Helen a job might earn her some money and make it easier to support her kids. Secondly, Link Deas defends Helen against Mr. Ewell because otherwise he would have kept hurting Helen both mentally and physically.
In TKM, Link Deas says, “if || hear one more peep outa my girl Helen about not bein’ able to walk this road I’ll have you in jail before sundown”(Lee 334). This indicates that Link Deas felt strongly of Helen after Tom’s death and did not want anything to happen to her because then no one would be able to take care of her children. Also, this implies that Link Deas thought of Helen as family because he put her problems before his. Adding on to that, Link Deas did not stop defending Helen until he knew that Mr. Ewell was afraid of him and therefore stopped tormenting Helen.
It was very generous of Link Deas to worry about the problems at hand and not just the minor problems in his life. Lastly, he comforts Helen in many ways. According to Lee, the narrator says, “He told her to come by his store that afternoon before she left. She did, and Mr. Link closed his store, put his hat firmly on his head, and walked Helen home”(Lee 333-334). Walking Helen home is only one of the ways Link Deas showed compassion for Helen. This shows he cared for her and would never let her walk home alone when he knew Mr. Ewell was mean to her.
From this, one can infer that Link Deas is a caring and loving person to those in need of affection. Also, in the text, Helen says, “Just let it be, Mr. Link. Please suh”(Lee 333). From this quote, Helen says she does not need help, but Mr. Link could see the fear in her eyes and knew what she had gone through and decided to walk her home and see what the problem was. From all the evidence in the text, Scout walks in the lady’s shoes to make a good impression on them, and Link Deas walks in Helens shoes because he feels she needs some serious help in her life.
