Gossip

The scene from doubt left us all with a deeper resonating feeling. It is the feeling that gossip is uncontrollable, and before we know it one comment can take power over us and others. Twisting and contorting what the words we said meant as it is passed from person to person. Gossip is a fatal game of whisper down the lane, that can lead to friendships, lives, and feelings hurt or ruined forever. It can rapidly shape the way we view each other, changing people lives forever. Especially in small towns like Maycomb.
The most powerful part of the scene from doubt to me was when the women cut open her pillow. She was told to do this by her priest after she came to him confessing she had been gossiping.

 As white feathers fluttered over her town, she and the viewers realized the power that gossip has, and once a small lie is released into the minds of others you can never get it back. This metaphor was deeply powerful, I think the fact that the feathers where white added a lot of symbolism. White usually stands for innocents, and most of us view gossip as small white, innocent lies, that will do no harm. But this is not true. We are shown this when the woman reports back to her priest and asks him what to do next. When he replies collect the feathers, she is puzzled, and admits there is no way she can return all the feathers to him.

Gossip and lies spread like these feathers, quickly and with no return. This theme runs deeply in the book To Kill A Mockingbird. Gossip and lies shape how the people in the town of Maycomb judge each other.

One can see as they read To Kill A Mockingbird how much these lies and gossip can hurt the ones it is directed act, for example Boo Radley. He becomes an outcast to the town after much gossip has been spread about him. The town begins to gossip about him because he is slightly odd, and was raised in a very strict ‘foot washing’ Baptist household.

The town’s view of him becomes more warped as he stays in his house more and more, till it gets to the point where he rarely ever comes out. Now the children in the town pick on him by trying to sneak into his yard at night, peeking into windows. To them he has become a mysterious monster of a man, whom they are afraid of, yet still very curious about. He has become the victim of many small white lies till it got to the point where he is held hostage within his own house.

Poor Boo Radley is lost with the feathers, his life gone in the wind forever. He will never be able to enjoy a more social life as the other towns people do, just because a few small white lies. Nothing is ever as small as it seems, so the next time you are tempted to gossip, or share a few small white lies, think. Who will fall victim next, who will be flown away with the feathers?