Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird by Michael J. Meyer

Journey connects to chapter 22 first through its title. It seemingly captures the essence of Miss Maudie’s discreet encouragement to Jem when he is devastated over the outcome of Tom Robinson’s guilty verdict. Jem has become disillusioned with his own idealistic view of justice and has gained a newfound understanding of the existence of hatred and prejudice in Maycomb. Miss Maudie reminds Jem of those who tried to do right, who were not cruel and heartless, and who tried to help Tom Robinson.
    Through a similar theme, the Journey song opens with a reference to a lonely girl living in a small town and points out that people, strangers in their own cities, live for emotion and appear to be caught up in a world that seems like an ongoing movie out of control—victims of circumstance. While the essence of the chapter and the song both acknowledge the ugly side of the human condition, both also advocate looking past current circumstances to maintain hope and belief in that which is still good and has the potential to get better.
    Chapter 29 reveals Scout’s first clear view of Boo Radley—not just as the one who saved her and Jem, but as a human being. The song “I Can See Clearly Now” by Johnny Nash also reveals a similar story. The symbolism of the rain, dark clouds, and obstacles that prevent one from seeing clearly are gone; similarly, when Scout tells her story, she looks over at Boo and really sees him. Her judgment is no longer clouded by mysterious shadows or games nor is her judgment any longer impaired by fear of what she did not know—a theme common to the novel. The “rain and clouds” of hate and prejudice (born from fear) are lifted by the heroic actions of one of the innocent mockingbirds in the novel. Consequently, as Scout begins to see Boo differently and more clearly, her character’s growth continues to be substantiated throughout the novel.
    Explanations from Chris
    Expert songwriter Tom Russell addresses issues of immigration in “California Snow,” a carefully woven tale of a border guard’s experiences on the California-Mexico border. As illegal immigrants make the crossing into America, they find themselves unprepared for the cold, and the border guard in the song finds a husband and wife lying in a ditch. After the wife dies, the guard relates that the “next day we sent him back alone across the borderline” (Russell 26–27). The reader can immediately connect chapter 8 to this song as Scout and Jem were exploring the snow in their innocence. The two illegal immigrants must have had the same spirit as Scout and Jem, an innocent and pure vision of the world at that point. While the California snow crushes one vision, Scout and Jem’s naïveté is first challenged by the fire at Miss Maudie’s house and then by an even more sinister racism, one also spurred on by distinctions of race and class.
    â€œIf I Were You” by Chris Knight encapsulates one of the novel’s central themes of empathy but does so in an unusual, unique way that relates well with chapter 15. In Knight’s song, the narrator is a homeless person asking for spare change: “If I were you, I would gladly loan me a dollar or two” (line 1). As a reader, I connect this song both to the relegated social class of the angry mob attempting vigilante justice on Tom Robinson and to the desperate feeling that Scout and Jem experience seeing their father in apparent danger. Knight’s character implores passersby for much more than spare change; he asks them for empathy, something Scout evokes from the members of the lynch mob through her actions when she diffuses the situation with the lynch mob.
    In chapter 22 and throughout the book, Atticus Finch takes on the pain and anguish of others in a very selfless manner, a manner incredibly similar to the way Johnny Cash describes his own actions in “Man in Black.” While the novel was written