Almost every single book on the planet contains minor characters. But in every book, do minor characters serve importance? They certainly do in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird! The minor characters in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird play an important role in the lives of the children because it is they who teach the children important lessons about what it means to be human. First, Jem and Scout learn that things or people aren’t always what they seem to be. There are two minor characters that most help to emphasize this important lesson. To start, there is Ol’ One Shot. In the novel, Scout and Jem jump to the conclusion that Atticus is incapable of doing anything “cool” like the fathers of their schoolmates’ can. Because of Atticus’ old age, the children take notice that he never plays football, fishes, hunts, etc. However, after Atticus is handed a rifle, they realize what he can do. Miss Maudie shouts, “I saw that, One-Shot Finch” (128), and later tells Jem, “...Atticus Finch was the deadest shot in Maycomb County in his time” (129). By this statement, and by hearing about Ol’ One Shot, the children learned that they do not know every little detail about everyone, and that they shouldn’t make judgements so immediately like they did. Jem and Scout did not know about Ol’ One Shot, but once they found out, their opinions about their father changed. Thus, they took in that people aren’t always what they seem to be. The next character …show more content…
Thus, this proves that not all “background” characters are completely worthless in every story. Jem and Scout learn important lessons such as staying persistent, and to never assume anything about things or people. These minor characters are important, because their lessons allow the children to develop throughout the course of the
Author uses Atticus teach these lessons through his wise words. Atticus teaches these lessons to not only the audience, but Jem and Scout too. Some of the main things he teaches his kids about are understanding people, using the mind instead of the body, the cruel reality of stereotypes, and true
Minor characters are often more important than they initially seem, and can be just as engaging and complicated as major characters. Furthermore, protagonists are isolated without the people that surround and influence them subliminally. This applies to the intriguing minor characters one has the privilege of discovering in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Specifically, Lee uses minor characters to effectively disprove stereotypes and establishing setting. Not only do they influence the direction of the plot, but also Scout and her development as a character. Lee carefully selects minor characters to send important messages and reinforce themes by using characters as symbols. Fundamentally, the minor characters in “To Kill a
Scout and Jem’s decisions were impacted greatly by how much Atticus has taught them. The methods he uses to bring them up are differ greatly, and give his children a very different set of beliefs than the majority of the people of Maycomb. For example, he teaches them about empathy, a ‘skill’ that much of the community does not know. “You can never really understand a person... until you climb into their skin and walk around in it” (39). Atticus teaches his kids how to empathize with someone, giving them an ideal to live by. As a child grows up, a lot of times they inherit their parent’s belief system as well. He will continue his open-,minded accepting attitude into his children, and their future decisions will be affected greatly by Atticus’s
Many people see Atticus’ teachings or method for upbringing as being ‘wrong’, nonetheless little do they know what the outcomes the kids are having. Having people like Atticus and Calpurnia quite involved in their lives, even people like Aunt Alexandra help to build a sense of morality. These morals are built around who and what they are exposed to, and as Jem and Scout grow up, they seem to learn more about the world and about how people aren’t always as good as they thought that they were. However they also realise that most people are good. This is what they learn to realise not everything is as it seems or made out to be. A classic example is Boo Radley. To the kids, he was made out to be a terrible person, when ironically he was the one that saved them from evil. Arguably this wouldn’t have been possible or have happened if Atticus hadn’t given the kids as much freedom as they had, and then the kids would have still been numb to the idea of questioning things and would have just taken someone’s word for
In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, readers are able to see the ways in which Scout, Jem, and Dill learn valuable life lessons as they progress throughout the story. The book is narrated by Scout, a twelve-year old girl, who takes part in many adventures with her older brother Jem ranging from games at the house of their neighbor, “Boo” Radley, to witnessing her father, Atticus Finch, defend a black man, Tom Robinson, from being wrongfully accused of rape. While many may argue that To Kill a Mockingbird should not be taught in class, the values taught by the characters help to argue that it should be taught to classes.
Firstly, Harper Lee shows the themes of innocence, maturity and growing up through the main characters of the novel. Due to this particular theme, the two main specimens would be Jem and Scout. Both these characters start as innocent, carefree and typical children until the dire events unroll, they start to lose their purity as they
Scout in her childhood faces many adversities a child should not have faced. Her mother died when she was two and lived with only male influences, Jem, 10 and
Jem and Scout, throughout “To Kill A Mockingbird,” learn to consider things from other people’s perspectives. Atticus, Jem and Scout’s father, says “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” (Lee 39). They learn this through experiences with their neighbor Boo Radley as they mature beyond their years. At the beginning of the novel, Jem and Scout make fun of Boo and assume that all of the rumors going around about him are true. However, later on in the story the children grow an admiration for Boo and learn to understand him. As they matured, Jem and Scout naturally learned many life lessons of appreciation, respect, and courage
Childhood years are a very impressionable time. This is no different for the fictional characters Scout and Jem Finch. Growing up in southern Alabama, they learned many lessons from the people around them and the circumstances they faced. Some of these important lessons learned are courage, empathy, and prejudice.
The Finch family is hopeful. Atticus has brought his children up by his values. The children, Jem and Scout, are taught to hope, by their father, Atticus. Both are impacted form the work Atticus has done, he has defended an African American. Jem learns from Atticus to never lose hope, and he does not lose hope throughout the novel. The children also show that there is hope in the future for people to be nonjudgmental. They did not understand how a jury could convict a man whom they knew was innocent and this was astonishing for them. Atticus explains to Jem that it has happened before and will happen again, sadly he also told them,"... when they do it - it seems that only the children weep...” (Lee, pg 232). Atticus is the wise one; he explains the problem to the children. He tells them that injustice will always happen. Atticus tells the children that bad things happen in the world, but only children find it hard to understand. The message of hope carries on in the book, is that despite her debut into the adult world, she avoids absorbing the prejudices of the community around her. Scout becomes our hope for a more tolerant future. However all hope is not lost in the end. As Scout realises that Boo is no one to dread and the two become friends, so too do we realise that the town can likewise learn to shed its bigotry and embrace its subject of unfound malice. Jem and Scout learnt that hope is always there, from there father, Atticus in the novel, To
In books, many characters go through moral development. The book To Kill A Mockingbird shows many examples of characters that go through this development and characters that help others develop. While there are many different characters in the book, the focus is on the development of Jem and Scout Finch with the help of Atticus and Calpurnia. The kids are introduced when they are young and over the span of the book, the adults teach and help them, making them have a different understanding of the world only two years later. With the guidance of Atticus and Cal, Jem and Scout go through a big moral change.
Jem , AND Scout both change for the good, because of what they learned from Atticus. These changes happend ,because of the courage ,and audacity Atticus had shown the kids, and the town of Maycomb . For example throught Atticus’s time in defending Tom, he takes the time to teach his kids ”fight with your own head instead of using your fists.” This statment shaped both Scout ,and Jem by changing them to not be violent ,and physical, but to smart ,and witty .Another way Atticus changed Jem ,and Scout is by shooting the disturbed dog with one shot . This showed both of Atticus’s kids that he is not the “feeble father” they thought he was. Instead he is known as “ One shot finch”. After this Scout wants to go tell all of her friends at school
No matter where or who a person is, they are always learning something, either about themselves or about the environment around them. In Harper Lee's heartwarming novel titled To Kill A Mockingbird, the main characters Jem and Scout grow and mature throughout the story as they learn both more about themselves and the world around them. As the story progresses, they learn many life lessons including those about prejudice, people and how they have been categorized and judged, and, last but not least, gender issues.
Both Jem and Scout learned many things from Atticus. Scout learned to put herself in other people’s shoes and learn what their life is like before judging them. Jem also learned something from Atticus. Jem learned courage from Atticus and he learned to face his fears and become
Harper. Lee goes on to illustrate or show us that education is not just specifically found in schools. The important and significant aspects of education that Scout and Jem learn from Atticus, is the one of if not the best piece of influential advise the children will ever get. Atticus ultimately wants the children to