Good Bones Figurative Language

In reality, the world is a terrible place. Even though there are tons of bad people in this world, it doesn't mean you have to follow along with their actions. In Good Bones by Maggie Smith and in To kill a Mockingbird, they show how you can confront the world by being a good person and confronting it by facing it. Harper Lee establishes the theme- of confronting the harsh realities of the world through the use of characterization and external conflict and Smith establishes the theme through the use of repetition and figurative language. Smith’s use of repetition and figurative language in “Good Bones” helps to convey confronting the harsh realities of the world. The poem “Good Bones” is about how the world is a terrible place, but how

Atticus says “There’s something in our world that makes men lose their heads-- they couldn't be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins. They’re ugly, but those are the facts of life.” What happens in this scene is Atticus and Jem are discussing how in the world it could’ve been fair for Tom to be executed when he clearly didn’t do it. The significance of this quote is that even though the trial against Tom was completely unfair, Atticus still goes through with the trial and makes a great case. How it represents external conflict and characterization is that the conflict is racism towards black men in court and that it affected Tom, Atticus, Jem, Scout, and Jem, and the black people of Maycomb because the people were upset and Atticus made a great case basically proving Tom was not guilty, yet Tom was found guilty and killed. As for the characterization, Atticus doesn’t avoid racism, he faces it head-on by defending Tom in the trial. How characterization and external conflict represent the theme is even though the odds of Atticus winning the trial were 1 in a million, he still took the case and did a great job. But none of that mattered to him. He didn’t give up. The result of his taking a trial during a racist time was the jury deliberated for a few hours rather than a few minutes, and even 1 person wanted Tom acquitted. Tom’s perseverance in confronting the harsh world took a huge step in decreasing the amount of racism. Instead of avoiding it, he took steps in ending a prejudiced jury one small step at a time, but one big step toward equality. How external conflict represents the theme is even though he received backlash from his community and threats from Bob Ewell, he still went on with the