Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird

862 Words2 Pages

In To Kill a Mockingbird, we are told the story of the lives of the Finch family through the eyes of one Jean Louise “Scout” Finch. She is around the age of eight years old, so she is very young. Essentially, she has always wanted to go to school, but when she gets there, she finds that her education level surpasses that of the first grade. Her father forces her to stay in school. That summer she meets a peculiar person who calls himself Dill, although his name is Charles Baker Harris. Scout and her brother, Jem, quickly befriend him. He becomes obsessed with the house down the street, so Jem tells him the story of Arthur “Boo” Radley; he never comes out. Some say he’s dead, but Calpurnia, the Finches’ housekeeper, won’t believe it until the day she sees a funeral carriage arrive at the house. Dill begins planning how he will get Boo to come out of the house, but his plans are not followed through that summer. In subsequent years, Dill and Jem try many things to get Mr. Radley to come out of his house, but absolutely none of them succeeds. Scout, however, finds that she has had a very close encounter with him; while her neighbor’s house was burning, Scout was forced to remain outside. It was the dead of winter, so she was violently cold. When she comes back into her own house, Atticus, her father, sees that she has a blanket around her that wasn’t there before, and most certainly did not belong to the Finch family. They discover that her back was turned to the Radley house the entire time, and that it must have been Arthur that had given her the blanket. Atticus’ role as the town’s best lawyer comes into play when he is asked to defend a Negro man in a court of law. The man is accused of raping the daughter of one Mr. Bob Ewell; the Ewell family is considered to be the scum of the town. They are equally hated and pitied by everyone; they pity the children but despise the father. Bob is an alcoholic who has no job. He gets relief checks from the government, but spends it all on liquor. The trial lasts for all of two days, but the process leading to the trial took at least a year.

Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird
1481 Words | 3 Pages
In the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the main characters: Atticus, Scout and Jem were faced with many losing battles such as Tom Robinson's case, the "mad dog incident" and Mrs. Dubose's addiction to morphine. This builds on the theme of there are things in life that won't go your way. The book takes place in the 1930's or 1940's in a small town in Alabama called Maycomb. The novel takes us through the life and perils that the main characters undergo and teach us about growing up and being mature.
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Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird
1141 Words | 3 Pages
Childhood is a continuous time of learning, and of seeing mistakes and using them to change your perspectives. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee illustrates how two children learn from people and their actions to respect everyone no matter what they might look like on the outside. To Kill A Mockingbird tells a story about two young kids named Scout and her older brother Jem Finch growing up in their small, racist town of Maycomb, Alabama. As the years go by they learn how their town and a lot of the people in it aren’t as perfect as they may have seemed before. When Jem and Scout’s father Atticus defends a black man in court, the town’s imperfections begin to show. A sour, little man named Bob Ewell even tries to kill Jem and Scout all because of the help Atticus gave to the black man named Tom Robinson. Throughout the novel, Harper Lee illustrates the central theme that it is wrong to judge someone by their appearance on the outside, or belittle someone because they are different.
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to kill a mockingbird
655 Words | 2 Pages
Scout Finch and her brother Jem live with their widowed father Atticus in the town of Maycomb, Alabama. The book takes place in a society withstanding effects of the Great Depression. The two main characters, Scout and Jem, approach life with a childlike view engulfed in innocence. They befriend a young boy named Dill, and they all become intrigued with the spooky house they refer to as “The Radley Place”. The owner, Nathan Radley (referred to as Boo), has lived there for years without ever venturing outside its walls. The children laugh and imagine the reclusive life of Boo Radley, yet their father quickly puts a halt to their shenanigans, as they should not judge the man before they truly know him. Atticus unforgettably tells the children, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
544 Words | 2 Pages
The theme of these two chapters is that Dill, and Jem wanted to go to the Radely house to get a peep at Boo Radely through the blinds. Scout feels uneasy about it but despite Jem’s wishes refuses to go home. He gets shot at with a gun while trying to escape. He lost his pants while escaping and when he went back to get them they where laid out on the fence like they where expecting Jem to come back. The next day every body was talking about it, they all thought Mr. Radely shot at a black man but missed. It seemed like Mr. Radely knew it was Jem though. Jem and Nathan Radley each said hi and Mr. Radely was talking about filling his tree with cement even though it was perfectly healthy. Jem found this strange.
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Examples Of Conscience In To Kill A Mockingbird
607 Words | 2 Pages
The narrator of the story, Scout Finch, is a curious young girl who is surprisingly mature for her age. When her older brother Jem, and shared friend Dill go to the intriguing Radley house to deliver a note to Boo Radley, whom Macomb County hasn’t seen in 15 years, Scout is
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Short Summary and Quote Analysis in To Kill a Mockingbird
566 Words | 2 Pages
Scout Finch, the youngest child of Atticus Finch, narrates the story. It is summer and her cousin Dill and brother Jem are her companions and playmates. They play all summer long until Dill has to go back home to Maridian and Scout and her brother start school. The Atticus’ maid, a black woman by the name of Calpurnia, is like a mother to the children. While playing, Scout and Jem discover small trinkets in a knothole in an old oak tree on the Radley property. Summer rolls around again and Dill comes back to visit. A sence of discrimination develops towards the Radley’s because of their race. Scout forms a friendship with her neighbor Miss Maudie, whose house is later burnt down. She tells Scout to respect Boo Radley and treat him like a person. Treasures keep appearing in the knothole until it is filled with cement to prevent decay. As winter comes it snows for the first time in a century. Boo gives scout a blanket and she finally understands her father’s and Miss Maudie’s point of view and treats him respectfully. Scout and Jem receive air guns for Christmas, and promise Atticus never to shoot a mockingbird, for they are peaceful and don’t deserve to die in that manner. Atticus then takes a case defending a black man accused of rape. He knows that such a case will bring trouble for his family but he takes it anyways. This is the sense of courage he tries to instill in his son Jem.
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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
828 Words | 2 Pages
group in his society. In the quote ." . . If I didn't take this case
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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
628 Words | 2 Pages
In the opening chapters of “To Kill A Mockingbird,” Harper Lee introduces several subtle instances of racism. However, when Jem and Scout are welcomed into Cal’s Church in chapter 12, the reader really gets to travel behind the false disguise of Maycomb County’s white society to see the harsh realities of the injustices suffered by the blacks. The black community is completely separate from the whites -- in fact, Cal lives in a totally different part of town!
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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
836 Words | 2 Pages
Scout learned a number of things in the book, but most of them all refer back to a statement that Atticus and Calpurnia said, which goes, “It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird because all they do is sing their hearts our for us.” (Lee, pg. 90). Scout learned that about people, too. She learned that some people don’t do anything to you, so it would be a sin to do something mean in return. Over the course of the story Scout becomes more mature and learns the most important facts of life. She was living through a very difficult time and most of that helped her get through.
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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
2185 Words | 5 Pages
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee seems like a complete replica of the lives of people living in a small Southern U.S. town. The themes expressed in this novel are as relevant today as when this novel was written, and also the most significant literary devices used by Lee. The novel brings forward many important themes, such as the importance of education, recognition of inner courage, and the misfortunes of prejudice. This novel was written in the 1930s. This was the period of the “Great Depression” when it was very common to see people without jobs, homes and food. In those days, the rivalry between the whites and the blacks deepened even more due to the competition for the few available jobs. A very famous court case at that time was the Scottsboro trials. These trials were based on the accusation against nine black men for raping two white women. These trials began on March 25, 1931. The Scottsboro trials were very similar to Tom Robinson’s trial. The similarities include the time factor and also the fact that in both cases, white women accused black men.
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Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird
700 Words | 2 Pages
One of the principal aims of To Kill a Mockingbird is to subject the narrator to a series of
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Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird
1461 Words | 3 Pages
Racial discrimination, although not the main focus of To Kill a Mockingbird, plays a large role throughout the novel. Many characters in To Kill a Mockingbird are affected by racial discrimination, whether they are the cause or not. Throughout the novel, three characters stand out as being affected by racial discrimination the most. These characters are Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, Atticus Finch, and Tom Robinson.
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Boo Radley Imagery
1080 Words | 3 Pages
Atticus, the father of Jem and Scout, was right when he said, ¨you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.¨ Scout realizes that Boo Radley is not who everyone rumors him out to be. Scout learns that you need to spend time with a person to find out who he truly is. She learns this after walking Boo Radley home after the disturbing experience the Finch kids had been in. Scout finally understood what life looked like from Boo Radley's perspective when she is standing with him on his front porch. Also, when Scout talks to Atticus at the end of the book he shows her how she has turned into a wonderful young lady. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee develops the theme that believing rumors will lead you to false assumptions unless you have walked in that person's shoes through imagery, characterization, and point of view.
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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
795 Words | 2 Pages
Harper Lee’s timeless novel To Kill a Mockingbird is told by Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch, a fiery young girl from the quiet town of Maycomb, Alabama. In defiance of the traditionally passive role of Southern women, Scout grew up as a tomboy and, like her older brother Jem, was unafraid to engage other children in physical confrontations. At the onset of the novel, Scout displayed these aggressive tendencies, fighting classmates whom she believed had wronged her or her family. However, Scout developed as a character in the first half of To Kill a Mockingbird to the extent that she was willing to walk away from fights that weren’t worth fighting. Scout’s willingness to engage in combat with other children early on in the novel was evident in the description of her treatment of Walter Cunningham after being punished for explaining his financial situation to her teacher. Scout described this fight, saying, “Catching Walter Cunningham in the schoolyard gave me some pleasure, but when I was rubbing his nose in the dirt Jem came by and told me to stop...Jem said, ‘…Scout here…she won’t fight you anymore.’ ‘I wouldn’t be too certain of that,’ I said” (Lee 30-31). As evidenced by this description, Scout had a quick temper and was just as willing as many of her male classmates to fight others, reflecting the combative sense of justice common to the children of her day. A key tenant of her aggressive morality was an unwillingness to turn away from a fight for fear of being called a coward. Scout held these beliefs throughout the beginning of the novel and fought many other children to defend her reputation. However, through moral instruction from her father, Atticus Finch, Scout was able to abandon much of her aggression. She grew to recognize...
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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
556 Words | 2 Pages
Atticus, a man with great wisdom, suffers from the fact that he had taken on a Negro case. He was constantly persecuted for his decision by all classes in Maycomb county, which made him have to work even harder and keep his head up if he was going to overcome the odds and win the trial. Even though his family was made fun of, he stuck with his choice and worked the hardest he could to ignore the threats and harassment. Some people almost tried to turn his own kids against him through persuading them against him and telling them about the different ways of Atticus; “‘Do you know he can play a Jew’s Harp?’(About Atticus) this modest accomplishement served to make me even more ashamed of him”(Lee 90). He did very well to ignore all the abuse and was greatly respected after the trial was over.
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Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird