In the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, the story is told by a young girl called Jean-Louise Finch but also known as Scout aged five at the start of the book almost turning six who in the book is quite unique as she could read at the age of six and understand her fathers profession as a lawyer. The story is about Scout growing up in the southern state of Alabama in a small town called Maycomb with her brother Jem and her father called Atticus who is the lawyer. The main theme of the book is about Atticus defending a black man called Tom Robinson and he is accused of raping a white girl called Mayella Ewell and how it affects her, in the book she learns about racism and prejudice and the struggle of black men in life and she also learns about the ways of life and family traditions. The book is set in the late 1930’s so racial discrimination is at its peak in the southern states of America. I feel that because Scout is telling the story makes it more powerful because it gives a sense of innocence as the world is metaphorically blowing up because she does not fully understand what is going and why because at the start of the book, she has not experience the world and the bad in it unlike Atticus and in some cases Jem because she is so young and innocence but as she has he first contact of the Tom Robinson case she starts to learn but about the world and the ways she describes her experiences make it heart warming for the reader like the time where she is at the cell where Tom Robinson is and the gang are there to kill him but Scout says to Walter Cunninghams dad, “Don’t you remember me Mr Cunningham? I’m Jean Louise Finch. You brought some hickory nuts one early morning, remember? We had a talk. I went and got my daddy t... ... middle of paper ... ... front hair and land one in his mouth. He slapped me ………… I knew he was fighting, he was fighting me back. We were equals. “Ain’t so high and mighty now, are you!” And this shows how dramatic and powerful she can be but then she can be sensitive and caring like when she was with dill outside the court hose during the Tom Robinson trial and Dill was upset. “That’s just Mr Gilmer’s way, Dill, he does ‘em all that way. You’ve never seen him get good’n down on one yet. Why, when – well, today Mr Gilmer seemed to me like he wasn’t half trying. They do ‘em all that way, most lawyer, I mean.” And I think these quotes show that Scout is not just angry all the time but caring as well and that she has no set personality she has to follow and that she loves he friend but also that she could stand up whenever she needed to defend herself or anyone else she loved and cared for.
Then you can understand better why a person acts or believes what he does. Only at the end of the novel does Scout finally learn to respect this saying. Until then, she remains curious and confused as to why Boo never came out of his house. In the meantime, she goes through a series of maturing experiences. She learns how to see her from the teachers point of view; she tries to judge the Cunninghams and the Ewells from their side; she bears the insults of the town and particularly the apparent viciousness of Mrs. Duboes.
In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Scout Finch tries to please her father, but living with no mother it’s hard to know how to act. It’s natural to follow Jem, her brother, when that is her only friend through out the years. Imagine hearing gossip about your father from friends, neighbors, and even your own cousin. Scout had to push through all of the gossip and believe in her father. Throughout the novel Scout shows how social she can be. To Kill a Mockingbird is a great novel that keeps you reading. Scout has a positive effect on events such as at the jail, she was the reason that the mob left. She also always curious so she is more mature than most kids her age. Through the journey of the trial she shows how hot-tempered, tomboyish, and mature she can be.
First, Dill learns that Mr. Raymond is not the man everyone sees him as. Dill doesn't feel so good in the trial and starts crying because he gets sick and doesn't feel good. While they are talking outside Mr. Raymond says he has something that will make Dill feel better. When Dill takes a sip of his drink he smiles and says "it’s nothin but Coca Cola Scout"(Lee 45). He learns that he shouldn't care what other people think about him. Dill also sees just how racist and messed up the world that he's living in actually is. The way Mr. Gimere talks to Tom such as "... and you didn't make her pay a dime, that's awful sweet of you"(Lee 137). He gets very
One thing that Scout learns is not to believe that everything she hears as the truth. This is a very good lesson because if you did, you become very confused because people can rarely agree on how a story went. For instance, when Scout wants to know more about Boo Radley, Stephanie Crawford gets excited because she sees this as an opportunity to open her mouth and goes on to tell Jem that, " she woke up in the middle of the night and saw him looking straight through the window at her .... said that his head was a skull" (13.) Then Jem goes further into what he heard by saying, " he dined on raw squirrel and any cats he could catch" (13.) This shows how the town compensates not knowing things about others by making up stories. Also Scout sees lies getting passed off as truth when Atticus takes on Tom Robinson as a client. Mean things are spread about Atticus and his credibility is questioned. Since Scout has a short temper and ears that hear everything she is easily offended at the comments that are said, such as the comment made by Mrs. Dubose, " Your father father's no better than the ni**ers and trash he works for." This angers Scout and Jem very much. It also shows that the town isn't happy with the moral decision's that Atticus makes and feel the need to bash him in unfair ways. Scout learns that if she keeps listening to what is said, she would go insane from not hitting anyone.
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.
First of all, Scout allows the reader to focus more on the exterior of situations. Children tend to experience things differently from others. Events that take place in society may be of great importance to adults and mean nothing to children. Things of importance differ between children and adults. But sometimes, a child’s perspective may be the best way to look at things. In To Kill A Mockingbird, the whole town was talking about Tom Robinson’s trial, especially since he was African American and Atticus, a white man, was to be his lawyer. According to reviewer Edwin Bruell in Racism in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, “[To Kill A] Mockingbird, he tells us, is about the townspeople, not about Robinson” (Mancini 101)....
Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird narrates the journey of Scout Finch from a feisty, close-minded girl to a mature, selfless young lady. Scout is the daughter of Maycomb’s lawyer, Atticus Finch, who defends Tom Robinson, an African American father and husband, who is strongly accused of rape. Through the eyes of Scout, Lee explores the themes of racial segregation, but most notably the question of what it means to be a hero. Heroism can take many forms, however for an action to be heroic it must serve others and cost the person something.
‘To kill a Mockingbird’ is a strong reflection of Harper Lee, the author’s, upbringing. Having been raised in the small town of Alabama in the 1920’s she was frequently exposed to prejudice and this inspired her to write a book, her only to date, loosely based on her early days. Tom Robinson’s trial, set in Maycomb County, is a parallel to the Scottsboro Trial, which was an infamous case during Lee’s childhood, where a ‘negro’ was accused of rape. However the emphasis is based more on the lawyer, Atticus Finch, who defends him, as the book is written from the perspective of his daughter, Jean Louise, known as ‘Scout’.
The story To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee portrays many different scenarios of racial discrimination. Discrimination occurs in the book and many people are affected by the racial slurs and other occurrences. In the story, Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, Atticus Finch, and Tom Robinson are all people that are discriminated against or are affected by discrimination. Racial discrimination is a major part of Kill a Mockingbird. Scout is a young, elementary school girl and she is the main character and narrator of the story.
The novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee is a simplistic view of life in the Deep South of America in the 1930s. An innocent but humorous stance in the story is through the eyes of Scout and Jem Finch. Scout is a young adolescent who is growing up with the controversy that surrounds her fathers lawsuit. Her father, Atticus Finch is a lawyer who is defending a black man, Tom Robinson, with the charge of raping a white girl. The lives of the characters are changed by racism and this is the force that develops during the course of the narrative.
Scout at the beginning of the novel is very curious, and stubborn. I know this because she doesn’t know how bad they are. It also means she hasn’t really matured yet either. Shes very curious about life, and Boo Radley. Scout also learns a very important lesson. She learns this because Aunt Alexandra takes her, and Calpurnia out of drama, and talks to them. She tells them not to say anything about Atticus, and nods at the accusations.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a literary classic that presents many topics of past and present America. The story is told from the eyes of a six-year-old Caucasian child, Scout, that is raised with her older brother, Jem, by their widowed father, Atticus, who is a lawyer for their fictional town Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930’s – around the Great Depression times. There are two main plots that are carried throughout the story, but above the other, the main storyline is the case Atticus is assigned defending an African American man, Tom Robinson, in court for being falsely accused of raping a white woman, Mayella Ewell, who was proven to be sexually abused and beaten by her own father, Bob Ewell. Given the evidence provided, Tom was still sentenced
When Scout begins to somewhat understand why the trial is taking place, and more importantly Atticus is involved in it, it shifts her view on the subject. She had previously idolized Atticus’ ideals and would have, both figuratively and literally, gone to war for Atticus; however, when she finds out that he, more or less, had to take the case she does, probably the most teenage thing in the entirety of the book, not idolize him instead she blames him. This transition shows just how much she grew up just in the year leading up to the
As the novel progresses Scout starts to take Atticus’s advice to heart and starts to realize that what he had said to her was entirely true. This realization wraps the book up and really demonstrates how Scout grew as a
Within this novel, written by Harper Lee, there are many important scenes which contain various key symbols and events described through the life of Scout, a young girl growing up through the great depression and racist times. Throughout the whole story, the most significant episodes show society inequality and capture a very dark time period of American history, that being a high level of racism shown throughout the towns and country. These episodes which are all witnessed by Scout and her older brother Jem, are as follows: The Trial of Tom Robinson, where Atticus has the power to show how a black man was innocent, the scene of Tom being declared guilty, and the scene in which the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” gets its name.