Mannen under trappan

Mannen under trappan författare Marie Hermansson

   Boken handlar om Fredrik som har köpt ett nytt hus med sin hustru Paula och deras två barn; Fabian och den nyfödda Olivia. Huset är stort och vitt och är beläget i Kungsvik.
   Familjen flyttar in direkt efter de köpt huset och först är allt frid och fröjd. Tills första sommaren i det nya huset anländer och Fredrik får problem med en inkräktare; en kort man som påstår att han bor under deras trappa. Fredrik som är huvudpersonen i boken blir störd av tanken att en liten konstig och smutsig man bor i deras hus utan hans godkännande (inte för att han skulle godkänna det), så han försöker få ut mannen som påstår sig heta Kwådd.
   En hyra på 5000 kronor skulle vara för dyrt för Kwådd eftersom han antagligen var en fattig uteliggare som intagit deras hus innan de köpt det, tänkte Fredrik. Men 5000 kronor fick han av mannen under trappan. Och sedan dubbelt upp: 10,000 kronor.
   Därefter påstod en man från samhället att han blivit bestulen av så mycket pengar Fredrik fått av Kwådd, vilket leder hans misstankar direkt till Kwådd. Han anklagar mannen för rånet och försöker med alla medel att få ut honom ur huset. Han går till sin vän på socialen och till en gammal tant som bott i huset för länge sedan för att hämta hjälp, men han lyckas aldrig få bort mannen.
   Den ena saken leder till den andra och Fredrik blir mer och mer besatt av att få ivåg mannen under trappan, han blir så besatt av denna man att han glömmer allt från sitt förra, perfekta liv han hade innan de flyttade in i huset och han gör extrema saker för att lyckas.

   Detta var inte en bok som jag vanligtvis läser, därför har jag lite blandade känslor för den.
   Den var absolut värd att läsa och den blev mer spännande ju mer man läste. Men den var också lite konstig, eller mycket konstig för hjärnan blev helt förvirrad. Man visste inte vad som var sant eller vad som faktiskt hände, man visste inte om mannen under trappan var verklig eller inte.
   Det var lite tråkigt att författaren inte lyckades göra boken mer spännande än den var, för efter halva boken (s.130-131 ungefär) fattade man vad som skulle hända senare.
   Slutet däremot var ganska bra tycker jag, även om jag inte riktigt vet hur jag ska tolka det. Jag antar att det är meningen att man ska tolka själv vad som hände efteråt, och jag vet inte vad jag ska tro ärligt talat. Fast ändå gillar jag sådana slut där man får avgöra själv hur det gick sen samtidigt som jag hatar att inte veta vad det rätta svaret är, vad som hände sen, även om det inte finns ett rätt svar.

                              

To Kill A Mockingbird - Last Entry

Chapter 19 – last page

I have now read the whole book To kill a mockingbird and I  must say I'm glad that I did.

   Harper Lee is the author of To kill a mockingbird and it was the only book she wrote, which is sad because her writing is really good. I know now (after having seen a documentary at school) that the book was first manuscripts, little stories about Atticus and the people of Maycomb, but not yet a complete book. Lee then got time to put these manuscripts together and write the book, and her friends who gave her this time said in the documentary I watched that they had seen the manuscripts and thought that it was like beautiful poems or small stories that were stunning by themselves.

I can understand this because some of the things Lee has written in the book is really beautiful and deep. Somethings she wrote was even a little funny, which makes the book easier to like.

It's hard to give only one example from a book with 309 pages, but here are some:

"'The night-crawlers had retired, but ripe chinaberries drummed on the roof when the wind stirred, and the darkness was desolate with the barking of distant dogs" (p.63)

”‘You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew.’” (Atticus p.124)

”Atticus disengaged himself and looked at me. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird wouldn’t it?’ 
Atticus put his face  in my hair and rubbed it. When he got up and walked across the porch into the shadows, his youthful step had returned. Before he went inside the house, he stopped in front of Boo Radley. ‘Thank you for my children, Arthur,’ he said.” (p.304-305)

   The book needs a lot of interpretation, though. The family relationships are explained a lot, but I also think it is necessary when you write a book, for the reader to understand all the relationships so you don't have to read into it. But a deeper meaning and the connection between the first part, about Boo Radley, and the second part, the trial, I believe is up to the reader to interpret in his/her own way.
Because the book is built in this way, with two parts, you get to know the characters in the book better and it makes them more alive, and you feel with them when they are faced with a problem. The way Lee has written the dialogs, in a southern dialect, also makes the characters and the story more alive.
According to me the second part is depending on the first part, because if the fist part weren’t there you wouldn’t get the same feeling at the end and you wouldn’t understand everything that was going on, you would just have all these questions unanswered.
   The book is a little slow in the beginning, though, but you have to live with it because it’s needed to make it good in the end.

   The conflict of this book is the trial; when Atticus is to defend Tom Robinson, a Negro who is said to have raped a white girl. In the court Atticus defends Tom with all his might and as the trial goes on you understand that Tom Robinson is innocent, Jem is certain of it.
”‘Scout’, breathed Jem. ‘Scout, look! Reverend, he’s crippled!’” (p.205), said Jem when it became clear that Tom Robinson couldn’t have been the one who hurt Mayella Ewell. But even so, the jury had never let a black man go free and Tom was convicted guilty.
   Bob Ewell, Mayella’s father, then wants to get back at Atticus because Atticus turned the table at the trial and claimed that Bob was the one who hurt Mayella for the reason that she had kissed Tom, and Bob wanted to learn her that it was not acceptable. So Bob threatened Atticus and I guess the climax is when he goes after Jem and Scout in the middle of the night, and tries to kill them. And that’s when Boo Radley shows up again.

   Jem has an idea about why people are like they are and act like they do in Maycomb:
”‘There’s the ordinary kind like us and the neighbours, there’s the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the Negroes.’ ‘The thing about it is, our kind of folks don’t like the Cunninghams, the Cunninghams don’t like the Ewells, and the Ewells hate and despise the coloured folks.’” (p.249)
   It’s very interesting to ask yourself if something like that exist where you live and I guess that where I live, here in Sweden, it definitely exist but maybe it’s just not quite that strong. I don’t really know much about the people that live in my town, but I think you can see some resemblance to that, but maybe not quite like it. I also think that it exists in Sweden but is disappearing because we evolve as human beings.

   How Atticus is able to see the good in everybody amazes me. People are so mean to him in the book and the things they say about him are mean, you can’t understand why they would say things like that to a person with such a good heart. But it was different at that time, and people didn’t know better I guess.
   In the end of the book, you understand a lot more about Atticus and what Scout meant
when it stood ”it was not until many years later that I realized he wanted me to hear every word he said” (p.98) or ”I know now what he was trying to do” (p.148): Atticus wanted to be a good example for his children.
   On page 301 Atticus says ”‘If this thing’s hushed up it’ll be a simple denial to Jem of the way I’ve tried to raise him. Sometimes I think I’m a total failure as a parent, but I’m all they’ve got. Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back at him… If I convinced at something like this, frankly I couldn’t meet his eye, and the day I can’t do that I’ll know I’ve lost him. I don’t want to lose him and Scout, because they’re all I’ve got’”, and this proves how much he loves his children and how much he wants to be a good example, not just for them but for himself.
  When Jem is furious about what Mrs Dubose said, Atticus says; "You just hold your head up high and be a gentleman. Whatever she says to you, it's your job not to let her make you mad"(p.111), and after her death I believe Jem is changed because if Atticus.

The theme of this book is the issue about black people in USA during the great depression. 
I can’t tell why Harper Lee wrote this book, if she wrote it because she wanted to write or she wanted to tell about her childhood, or if she wanted people to think about this matter and realize what was going on so we could learn from the mistakes in history, move on and change.
When this book was published it didn’t get a lot of attention because the book was rebellious and it stood against everything everybody believed in. The book showed the true colors of society and the people wanted to ignore the truth. But it became an eye-opener and now it’s a classic, and I’m glad that I had to read it.

"He would be there all night, and he would be there

when Jem waked up in the morning" (p.309)