To Kill a Mockingbird Post #5

--Journal Entry--

Chapters 18-24

Jem Finch

          I watched my father walk across the floor. Pacing, talking to each witness. I watched and listened with unnerving tension during the entire trial. I felt Scout shift next to me, fidgeting. I could tell she understood none of what they were saying, she was just watching our father talk. And he was talking, there was complete silence in the room, the bustling, fidgeting, tapping, and sighing was gone. Eyes were wide and you could tell every single person in that courtroom was slowly taking in every word he said. It felt like we were slowly melting, all of us packed together in this burning hot room, but I barely felt the heat. I was too focused on Mr. Ewell and his lies, his trash talking, his not even stealthy deception, and his pure hate for all colored folks. He was a pure fraud, plain and simple. Then Mayella, how no one seemed to notice that their stories were different. Mr. Ewell said he chased Tom out of the house and Mayella claimed that he ran up to her and yelled "who done it?". Nothing seemed to matter, it was irrelevant, even with the lack of evidence, with Mayella basically admitting her father beat her instead, and the pure impossiblity that Tom could have done this. No, even with all that, Tom was black and that meant he was guilty.

         I was sure we were going to win this case at first, with all the evidence it seemed impossible to vote otherwise. We waited for two hours in the courtroom. Two hours for the court to decide, normally it would have been about five minutes for the jury to convict a black man against a white one. Scout looked like she was going to fall asleep, I subtly tried to shake her but she was bored, clearly not as an excited as me. I was wide awake, anxious for the outcome, convinced that he would be found innocent. It was so clear, clear enough for Scout to understand. But somehow, grown men with educations and experience could not understand something a simple 8 year old could.

       My breath seemed to disapear when the jurors walked out, and my heart sank. Everbody knows when the jury convicts the defendant they don't look at him, and the jurors were averting their eyes from Tom. No, I thought, this was not possible. The announcement came out, Tom Robinson was found guilty. Before I could stop them, tears streamed down my face. Sticky, and hot, and they made my eyes burn. Why? I wanted to shout, yell at them. How could you do that? How could you convict him? Were they not paying attention? There was no way he was guilty, but they couldn't believe a black man over a white one. Predjudice came before justice. White people being "better" than black people was going to send Tom Robinson to jail for a crime he did not commit. I tried to choke back my tears that were flowing down. It just wasn't right, it just wasn't. I started to realize we weren't all the same folks. We were separated into groups and nothing could ever make us get along. It was sad, we were all not joined as people, we were separated by our tiny differences. Like where we live and the color of our skin. A thought occured to me, maybe Boo Radley stays inside because he doesn't want to come out. Maybe, he doesn't want to leave and come out into this unfair world.