Friday, October 17, 2008

Chapters 1-3 Jem

What did Dill dare Jem to do? What signficance does this have with the story? (think urban legends)

8 comments:

Uin Kim said...

Dill dared Jem to go further than the Radley gate. This shows the fear and hostility people have against Boo Radley. Fear is the only thing that could make this kind of thing become a dare. This fear is aroused by the urban legend about Boo Radley, where he is portrayed as a crazy man that stabs some scissors into his father's leg. It is said that if you touch anything near his house (such as a tree in his yard) you will die. So far, this story's focus is on Boo Radley's legends, so that is why this dare has a significance in this story.

Augusta A said...

Dill dares Jem to go and touch the Radley house. Both the boys thought that by doing this Boo would automatically come out and do something bad to them. Jem does it because his sister is there and because he doesn't want Dill and her to think he's scared of anything since thy are both smaller than him. In this book I see jem like the kind of leader character but i think that will change as we advance in the book. This is something good though because as he grows up he tries to always teach his little sisiter a new lesson and this time that lesson is about how to be brave no matter how scared you are.

sora cho said...

Dill dares Jem to touch the Radley's house door, which so far, "nobody" has done it before. Dill dares Jem to touch the house because he himself is interested on how Boo Radley looks, and thinks that by doing this, Boo would come out of the house. Jem doesn't want to look like a coward on front of Dill and Scout, forcing himself to do it. There has been lots of rumors and stories about Boo Radley, making him look as a bad, wild person, when nobody knows how he looks and how he acts. I would be curious, but that doesn't mean that I have the right to be saying lies.

Anonymous said...

Jem was dared to go and touch the door of the Radley Place. As Uin sad before, this really shows how much fear the rest of Maycomb feels about Boo Radley. But infact, Boo might not be the evil man who stabbed his father with scissors. He may, infact be scared of the rest of the people in Maycomb. That is probably why Boo never comes out of his house. But if people knew, and at least gave Boo a chance, he may not be that man that likes to harm people after all.

Anonymous said...

Dill dared Jem to touch the Radley house. Scout explains us that Jem had never rejected a bet in his life before so he did it. This tells us quite a bit. For one thing, I agree with what Uin said about that it represented the fears that people had of Boo. It also means that apparently it seems to be very hard to touch the gate or very "risky" for some people. If not, it would have never become a dare. These fears then arouse suspicion and a Urban Legend is created.

yellowtyson said...

Dill dares Jem to go further into the Radley Place. I agree with Uin that this shows the fear and hostility that people have to Boo Radley. Fear is aroused because of the Urban Legend of Boo. It also shows that how risky it might be to approach something that you do not have a clue about.

andy said...

What Dill did is that he dared Jem to got further past the gates of the Radley place. What Jem hears this, he went pale white. What happens is that it demonstrates that Stereotypes and rumors are powerful enough to cause great fear. They have never seen Boo Radley before and they no nothing about him except for the rumors and the fact that he has never come out of the house in quite a while. So, the point is that people are fearful even for things that they barely know about (in this case boo Radley.)

Jacky Mejia said...

Dill dares Jem to touch the Radley's home. Jem was afraid, but since he had never said no to a dare, he accepted. This showed that people do fear Boo. If people did not fear him, but feared another thing, Dill would have dared Jem to do the other thing instead of touch the Radley home.