Atticus Appearance Vs Reality

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“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around it” (Lee 39). The main character Jean Louise “Scout” Finch is told this quote by her father, Atticus, in the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Atticus believes that you will not be able to better understand what someone is going through without seeing things from their perspective. The novel follows Scout’s perspective on how the town’s society imposes hatred, prejudice and ignorance towards the innocent. Scout matures when she begins to see things from the perspectives of those the society isolates. Towards the end, we see the change that has taken place in Scout that allows her to walk up to Boo Radley …show more content…

This is because she experiences first hand of how the society conforms others to be racist and negative. The novel began with her point of view to be innocent and pure toward the society. Later on throughout the novel, she began to witness corruption in the town of Maycomb beginning with the trial of Tom Robinson and how others were treated differently, such as Dolphus Raymond. Scout learns the meaning of appearance vs. reality, a theme portrayed in the novel. The whole novel is based on Scout’s point of view because of her ability to view everyone equally without any hatred or resentment towards anyone. Jem tells Scout near the end of chapter 23, "I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time...it's because he wants to stay inside" (Lee 304). This represents how the townspeople of Maycomb are judgemental and filled with hatred toward each other that even Boo Radley, a character who is presumed violent, does not even want to take part in the society’s unethical way of mistreating others simply for living in their own skin. Throughout the novel, Scout has a glimpse of the society’s true nature, and uses the moral lessons she gathered from multiple characters in the novel and use it to assist her to become mature, understanding, and have an open

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