Aleksandra Mitrovic
Mrs. Bolton
ENG 2D
May 2, 2014
Appearances lie, but the truth only lies within in To Kill A Mockingbird
Optical illusions can appear to be moving, but really are not. At a certain angle they seem different than in actuality. The same is true about people. It is part of human nature to self deceive as some do not necessarily see the truth from both the outside and inside of a person. On the surface appearances are misleading as it does not take any depth into consideration. In Harper Lee's novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" Scout, the protagonist innocence leaves her naive to the harsh realities of Maycomb. As she involves herself more with the town, people's true colours begin to unravel. Her eyes begin to open to the mirage of her pure life by rumors and actions of the people around her. Along with the verdict of Tom Robinson. Scout learns that reality is different than it appears through her unassuming neighbors, father and the trial.
To begin with, Scout learns reality is not how it appears through her neighbors. Surely Mrs. Dubose is not as heartless as she first seems to be. Mrs. Dubose poses as a high maintenance old lady that interrogates Scout's and Jem's behavior on a daily basis. She seems callous and inhumane with her spiteful remarks about how she is an "ugly girl" (Lee 99) and how her "father's no better than the niggers and trash he works for" (Lee 102). After the destructive encounter with her precious camellia bushes and endurance of a reading punishment Scout sees her in a new light after her death. Despite her initial depiction of the fowl mouth of Mrs. Dubose she finds out that "She was the bravest person [Atticus] ever knew" (Lee112) and simply "died beholden ...
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...e not as fair as they seem to be. If the ones in power are blind to the evidence and only rule with racism the person will always be guilty of something. People's true character is hardly ever fair and hides their ignorance to do anything to get what they want.
Not all of the characters, or circumstances are the way they first appear to Scout. In reality a person may look dangerous, and mean but can have a sweet soul deep down. The people in an individual's life can hold surprises about who they really are and sometimes situations are depicting. The author, Harper Lee of "To Kill A Mockingbird", expresses the contrast between appearance and reality through the eyes of Scout. People look different to others than how they truly are. Appearances lie, but the truth only lies within.
Work Cited
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Warner Books, 1982.
To Kill a Mockingbird "I simply want to tell you that there are some men in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father's one of them." – Miss Maudie The quote above states that Atticus Finch was a man who did unpleasant things, but this quote is false. Miss Maudie had every good intention when she told Jem and Scout this and her point was taken in the way she intended it to be taken by the children. Her point could have been better worded if the portion that reads "our unpleasant jobs" were replaced with "what is right." Atticus did unpleasant things only because he knew that they were the right thing to do. Miss Maudie told the children about their father in this way only to avoid saying that the rest of the town was wrong.
In 1960, author Harper Lee wrote a book titled “To Kill a Mockingbird”, which has become a well-known classic. The main theme of the story, represented various times, is the significance of empathy for others as well as recognizing evil and fighting against it. Jem and Scout both learn that their hometown is not as pleasant as they once thought, and that no one is truly evil unless if they make an attempt to change themselves.
To Kill A Mockingbird tells the story of a young girl, Scout, who comes of age and eventually comprehends that not all people are open-minded, or kind. Scouts interactions with other people help to shape her and allow her to accept that not everyone has the same thoughts and opinions as her. Scout and Jem’s interactions with Atticus help the reader clearly understand that he is a responsible, courageous, and non judgmental man.
One of the first lessons taught in Mockingbird is the power of understanding other people’s perspectives. Initially, Scout has trouble empathizing with other people, especially her first Grade Teacher, Miss Caroline, whom Scout becomes frustrated at for not understanding Maycomb’s complex social structure. After hearing his daughter complain, Atticus tells Scout that she'll “get along a lot better with all kinds of folks [if she] considers things from [their] point of view” (39). After ‘standing in the shoes of another person’, it is much harder to be prejudiced towards that person. Indeed, this may be because a key tenet of prejudice is disregarding the views of whoever is being judged. Nevertheless, it proves difficult for Scout to grasp this relatively simple concept, who begins to hear rumors of Boo Radley, an enigma who has not been seen outside his home for over 30 years. Thus begins Jem and Scout’s quest to make Boo Radley come outs...
The illusion of innocence is deeply instilled in the outlook of children. Reality soon takes its grip as kids begin to grow and mature, and they lose their pure qualities that they have once possessed. Their father Atticus shelters Jem and Scout from the town’s disease, teaching them the act of sympathy and how to distinguish the good aspects over glaring at the imperfections of people. The loss of innocence portrayed in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is exposed as the lives of Jem, Scout, and Dill go through their racist and prejudice society, learning how the worlds dreamlike qualities is nothing more than just a childhood fable. The children’s judgment of people and society quickly sheds as Lee displays the harsh realities to Jem, Dill,
“‘Old Mr. Bob Ewell accused him of rapin’ his girl an’ had him arrested an’ put in jail---’” (Lee 164). To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, takes place in a settled town called Maycomb in Alabama. It is based during the early 1930’s when the Great Depression hit. Poverty reaches everyone from families like the Finches to the “white trash” Ewells. Soon the settled town Maycomb gets into conflict characterized by poverty, racism, and domestic violence.
Jill McCorkle's Ferris Beach, a contemporary novel, shares numerous characteristics with Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel written in the 1960's. Like To Kill a Mockingbird, McCorkle's novel documents the life of a young girl in a small southern town. The two narrators, Kate Burns and Scout Finch, endure difficult encounters. A study of these main characters reveals the parallels and differences of the two novels. Jill McCorkle duplicates character similarities and rape from Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird to show the reader how young girls think and develop.
“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.” Harper Lee identifies many charcters in the beginning of this book. She was very descriptive of all the characters in the beginning of the book. Each character was described from Scout’s point of view. Throughout the book, Lee lets the reader see some of the characters in their natural environments. They are still written through Scout’s eyes, but instead of passing by them on the sidewalk, Scout is in their home sitting with them, or hearing personal stories about them. Three of these characters that Scout points out specifically are Jem Finch, Aunt Alexandra, and Tom Robinson.
Dubose as she does to Boo. At the beginning of the book she agrees with the town’s consensus, “neighborhood opinion was unanimous that Mrs. Dubose was the meanest old woman who ever lived” (46), and that she sleeps with a Confederate pistol under her pillow, ready to shoot. Scout initially believes this. Later in the book, after Mrs Dubose dies, Atticus tells them that Mrs Dubose “was the bravest person I ever knew” (149) because she was able to break free of a morphine addiction before she died. After spending so much time with Mrs. Dubose and listening to Atticus, Scout is now able to understand that while Mrs. Dubose may have been mean, she wasn’t evil. She was just a sick old lady who was in a lot of anguish and pain; through this understanding, Scout learns not to judge so
In 1960, a novel was written to outline injustices and racism against those who were innocent, though unfairly judged because of social expectations and prejudiced beliefs. This novel not only presented these issues, but is also considered a revolutionary piece of literature, still being read by many people today, more than 50 years later. The novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, has caused some controversy about the intents of the book and the way certain people or groups are presented. Whether To Kill a Mockingbird as a narrative outshines the issue it presents is a debatable argument. However, I believe that the narrative of the novel supports the concerns exhibited for numerous reasons. In what follows, some of these are presented: the historical
I chose to write a thank you letter because it seem to fit my writing style. This fits my skills because I’m not a big writing person and this feels like it was the easiest for me to do. The easiest part about writing a letter is knowing the characters well enough that you can talk about their personality and how they have impacted Maycomb. The most challenging part is going to be citing the story at least 3 times because I’m not going to know exactly where a character said something or remembering an episode. This project will help me with improving my skills by learning how to write a more complex letter and with higher level words. I want to improve my skills on citing the text by going back and finding 3 or even more events or dialogues from
There are many books in the world that introduce the theme of prejudice using not only the racial standpoint, but also the way society looks at people as a whole. Not many of these books look at this touchy subject through the mind of a child. The book To Kill a Mockingbird takes that theme and runs with it. Harper Lee, the author of the book, decided to put aside all normal writing styles and take on a challenging and touchy subject of predigest and unjust in the norms of society from the eyes of the most innocent, children. The reason Lee decided to take this complicated viewpoint is to show the effects on a child’s behavior and the responses you could get out of such an impressionable mind. Writing in the eyes of a child also lets the reader get a new perspective in a way that the mind of an adult would not be able to understand. There are many examples of predigest in the eyes of a
To Kill a Mockingbird “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it” (Lee 30). Atticus Finch teaches his children to look at life and people in a different way, and he also practices what he preaches to his children. By focusing on the coexistence of good and evil, the importance of moral education, and the existence of social inequality, one could argue to prove these points and how they form the themes of Harper Lee’s, To Kill a Mockingbird. Throughout the novel, readers see the good and the evil come out of most people.
“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
In the past, I have done reviews on John Adams, Rudy, Grease, and The Butler. For my fourth quarter movie review, I decided to watch To Kill A Mockingbird because I have already read the book and wanted to see the film adaptation of it. This movie focuses on the Finch family in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama around the time of the Great Depression. It is based off of the book of the same name by Harper Lee. Both focus on Scout and Jem Finch growing up in the deep South and struggling to figure out how to act in the world around them.