Here are some of my students’ To Kill a Mockingbird visual theme representations. I couldn’t be more proud of them!
Dakota L and Chaz M wrote: For our Visual Analysis for To Kill a Mockingbird we wanted to show descriptive words that depicted the book’s story line in some way. We chose words like guilt, cruelty, and prejudice because these words deeply affected the book in multiple ways. Guilt when Miss Mayella was at the trial on the stand feeling sorry for what she was doing to Tom Robinson; cruelty was present countless times, like the beatings Miss Mayella received from her father. Prejudice and racism toward blacks was highly common throughout the book so we decided that was an important word to add to the list. Guilt, cruelty, and prejudice are just three of the words that we chose; there are many others that portray the book’s intense storyline as well. We drew a tree that represented not only the part of the book where Jem found different objects in but as the main symbol of the book. The center of peace and destruction. Peace as in a place where Jem and Boo Radely connected, destruction when that peace got taken away from then due to the cementing. We wrote the words on the tree branches. Then drew different objects in and around the tree to represent the tree as the center. The objects we chose were somewhat of the main symbols of the book that altered the main events. The main characters of the book were also written on the tree in some way to show who these words and objects mainly affected.
Sam P wrote: For my visual analysis I chose loneliness as the theme to portray and I chose to portray it in a drawing. In my visual I wanted to show that the loneliest character in the book, in my opinion, is Boo Radley. I chose him because he is stuck in his house all the time and people keep making up rumors about him so I imagine that if I was in his situation I would be very lonely. I decided that I wanted my visual to have a sad or angry look because when someone is alone they are usually either sad or angry. I think Boo Radley looking through the window shutters represents him trying to reach out and not be so lonely and seeing other people. I also chose to darken out his eyes and around his face to represent how only a small group of people truly know what he looks like and people just make assumptions from rumors that are spread. His eyes are the most important part of the image because they symbolize loneliness, anger, fear, and rumors, that is why I put them in the center of the picture and made them darker than the rest of it. Jem said, “Miss Stephanie Crawford said she woke up in the middle of the night one time and saw him looking straight through the window at her…said his head was like a skull lookin’ at her” (12-13).
Sean W and Jordan W wrote:
For our visual analysis we thought of the theme of that once a mockingbird is trapped it can’t sing as loud. In our visual project, we wanted to show how when the hole in the tree was filled in, it trapped a mockingbird from singing. This project is a model of what we think The Radley’s Tree looked like and how when the knot hole was filled in “Boo” couldn’t talk to them through the tree. “Mr. Radley, ah—did you put the cement in that hole in that tree down yonder?” “Yes,” he said. “I filled it up.” “Why’d you do it, sir?” “Trees dying” You plug ‘em with cement when they’re sick. You ought to know that, Jem” pg 62. This is after Nate found out what “Boo” was doing, Nate trapped Boo’s only way to talk to outside life off. We both think that Boo was abused when he was younger so he was never given a chance to be normal that’s why he always is suck in side, because he’s scared of outside life during the day when his farther, and after Nate could see him. So when no one was up he could give Jem, and Scout the gifts in the knot hole.
Hanna L wrote:
For my visual analysis I chose Innocence as the theme that I wanted to portray about To Kill a Mockingbird. In my visual I wanted to show how innocence can be lost without us even knowing about it, by showing a petal being “plucked” off of a rose. To do this I used the help of my practical camera to “snap” a shot that showed a young innocent girl losing her innocence one petal at a time. I wanted my visual to show innocence and how fast it can be taken away from you. Scout is young girl who learns the hard way on how innocence doesn’t always last very long. Also, I wanted my visual to seem sad in a way along with the innocence aspect of it. I added white words on the rose; Innocence lost for every fallin’ petal. These words are in white to resemble the pure and innocent of heart, and I put fallin’ instead of falling because a southern dialect is used throughout the entire book, and fallin’ is a word used in a southern dialect. For those of you who are wondering, the nail polish was meant to be old and chipped because it represents brokeness, for example Jem’s broken arm and lost innocence on pagetwo hundred and sixty-four. The rose defines the “untouched” innocence, while the petal shows the brokenness and lost innocence. The rose was my main focus point of my visual. As for the colors, I wanted to highlight and bright my visual to give it a glowing affect so that my viewer would first see the “broken” rose, because it’s what my visual is as a whole. The reason I thought the petal should be broken off is because it kind of relates to the part in the book when “Jem picked up the candy box threw it in the fire. He picked up the camellia, and when I [Scout] went off to bed I saw him fingering the wide petals” (112).
Find more at student.sheboyganfalls.k12.wi.us
