“The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt” (Max Lerner). As children begin the process of growing up they have to go difficult times and periods in order to become an adult. Even though the events may hurt, they still gain strength from those events and when then find that strength, then they begin to truly grow up. This lesson is learned throughout Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. The story takes place in the 1930s in the small town Maycomb County, Alabama. The main character Scout starts the story out as a young girl who behaves as a tom-boy and she favors fighting rather than talking out her feelings. Scout’s father Atticus is trying to teach her how to mature, but it is a long process. Her older brother Jem and their best friend Dill contribute toward her staying immature by messing around with the neighbors, specifically the Radley’s. They become fascinated with the mysterious son, Arthur (Boo) Radley. But overtime, he becomes insignificant because of Atticus’s job and the stress that it puts on the family after he takes a difficult case. As a result of this case Scout matures faster than normal because of the difficult material. Throughout the novel, Scout becomes more mature causing her to strengthen her compassion toward others, which shows how through growing up, people experience situations that cause them to understand the appropriate way to act.
During Scouts transition
“Human beings are poor examiners, subject to superstition, bias, prejudice, and a profound tendency to see what they want to see rather than what is really there” ~ Scott Peck. Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird abounds with the injustice produced by social, gender, and racial prejudice. The setting of the book takes place in the 1930s, where racism is a big deal in society. In the novel Harper Lee uses a mockingbird as an analogy to the characters. The Mockingbird is a symbol for Three Characters in the book, Atticus Finch, Tom Robinson, and Boo Radley. The people of Maycomb only know Boo Radley and Tom Robinson by what others say about them. These Characters are then characterized by other people 's viewpoints. In the novel there are many themes that are adjacent to our lives, the one that is found in To Kill A Mockingbird is Human Conflict comes from the inability for one to understand another. “ You never understand a person until you consider things from his point of view- until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” (39)
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee has been banned and/or challenged over thirty times since its publication in 1960. Effectively preventing many students from enjoying the novel and benefitting from its message. To ignore racism is no different than denying it ever existed. To Kill a Mockingbird is appropriate for mature adolescence/students and should not be banned from schools. Despite its sexual related content, or profanity, a valuable lesson remains that should be taught to students.
Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird says, “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what” (Lee 149). Atticus is the best example of what courage is this book for three major reasons. First, he is a single parent, secondly he defended Tom Robinson, and finally because he was willing to spare Mr. Arthur suffering by allowing his son, Jem, to take the responsibility of Mr. Bob Ewell’s Death.
In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee creates an amazing story, but there is one thing that is controversial in the book: Did Atticus do the right thing by taking on Tom’s case? In the book, Tom Robinson, who was a black man, was wrongly accused by Bob Ewell for raping Ewell’s daughter, and Atticus, a lawyer, decides to take on the case in a Maycomb, which was a very racist town. Bob Ewell, who is mad when Atticus makes a fool of him, goes after, and hurts, Atticus’s kids. So, the question is, did Atticus do the right thing by taking on the case, and by doing so, put his kids in danger? Most likely, the answer is yes, even though he put his kids in harm 's way, he still did the right thing, since his kids only came out of the experience with mild injuries, but a lot of knowledge and experience about how to live in the racist town of Maycomb.
In order to be your best possible self, you have to put yourself in someone else 's shoes. Atticus emphasizes that you have to untie your own shoes before putting yourself in someone else 's throughout his parenting in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Atticus strongly encourages Scout to explore the mentality of compassion, sympathy, and tolerance, by crawling into other 's shoes and trying to grasp what they go through in their everyday lives. When Scout puts herself in else 's shoes, she comes to the conclusion that the world is full of people who are willing to live their lives in hiding, just to be happy, and to hide from people’s harsh judgement.
There was a copious amount of discrimination in the 1930’s deep south, whether it be racism or sexism. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, conflicts arise when an African-American man is unjustly accused of raping a white woman in the sleepy town of Maycomb, Alabama. Citizens of the town are forced to choose whether they believe to follow what the rest of the town thinks, whether that is their true opinion or not, and be honest with themselves and stand up for who they really think is innocent. However, as shown throughout the book, many people have trouble publicly announcing their opinions on the matter, choosing to convey their opinions in more subtle ways. Because of different occasions that question people’s morals and virtues
Prejudice is a negative opinion or feeling formed about someone without thought or reason, and before knowing anything about them. In To Kill a Mockingbird, the citizens of Maycomb are prejudice and cruel towards Tom Robinson and he is put on trial and convicted because he is a black man. Prejudice was also destructive to Jem, and witnessing it every day left him hurt and heartbroken. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the destructiveness of prejudice is harmful to Jem and Tom Robinson, therefore children and people of colour are the most affected by prejudice at the time the book took place in the 1930’s.
In the novel of To Kill a Mockingbird, we learn about the Finch family and also a few other characters that all play pivotal roles in how the story plays out. Scout, the main protagonist in the story, learns about a character named “Boo” Radley from her friend Dill. Scout, Dill, and her brother Jem set out to lure Boo Radley out of hiding and into the open. All of the rumors consisted of grotesque descriptions describing the facial features of Boo. They were trying to get the monster out of the dark. Through the time they are investigating Boo, they find that Boo has been leaving them presents in a hole in a tree on Boo Radley’s property. The children get a little out of hand when they begin to act out the story of Boo Radley. Atticus
In the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, by harper lee, the setting is based on a little town, Maycomb, as scout grows up she sees the changes in her society, role of women, and courage. Scout learns more about the world as she grows up and she starts to see the discrimination between the blacks and the whites. Scout hears a lot about Boo Radley but never sees him. She knows how her society is bad from the day Tom Robinson’s trial and from all the rumours that were made of Boo Radley.
Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” is set in a small Southern United States community called Maycomb during the Great Depression era. Even though the whole book primarily revolves around Scout and her life of growing up, she also learns about segregation and racism and how it relates to Maycomb’s history. It eventually leads to the trial of Tom Robinson where he is accused of beating up and raping Mayella Ewell. Even though it was clear that Tom Robinson did not do anything wrong, he was convicted by an all white jury simply because he was black. The trial of Tom Robinson and its verdict shows an example of how segregation in the court system prevents fair trials from occurring.
Everyone grows up hearing elders saying how “back in their day”, things were done differently. Although it often makes people roll their eyes when they hear that saying, it tends to be true. Each generation has its own pros and cons, and each time period is unlike the previous one. This is especially true for the 1930s, where discrimination was at its peak since the Civil War, and the majority of the United States was in extreme poverty. This sets the scene for the book, To Kill A Mockingbird, where the young narrator, Scout, tells the events that happen in the small town of Maycomb. The plot of the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, has a more profound effect since it is set in the 1930s.
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, was published in 1960 and is read by ninth graders all across the country because of its Pulitzer-Prize-winning writing. To Kill a Mockingbird parallels Harper Lee’s life in the sense that like the main character, her father was a lawyer and she had a best friend similar to the one of her main characters. She used this real life experience to tell the fictional story of Scout, a young girl living in the prejudiced community of Maycomb, Alabama. Scout and her brother, Jem, encounter a young boy, Dill, and quickly befriend him. They become interested in the suspicious story of Boo Radley and his family. However, the story’s plot is centered around her father, Atticus, and his case to defend Tom
“Mockingbirds don’t do any harm but make music for us … that’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird”, is a famous quote from the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Atticus, the father of the main character Scout, says this to her and her brother Jem when they receive rifles for Christmas. This book is considered a classic due to the allegory between the book title and the trial that occurs about halfway through the book. In the beginning of To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout is six. She is an innocent girl who doesn’t attend school and doesn’t question much. When she starts school her entire world begins to change and continues to throughout the rest of the book. When Scout is seven, a trial occurs in her town of Maycomb county over a negro named Tom Robinson and flips her entire world upside down. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses a primary theme that one will lose their innocence as they grow up due to the people and events that occur around them, which can be seen through the characterization and contrast between the characters of Scout, Jem and Boo Radley.
To Kill a Mockingbird is basically a novel about growing up under remarkable circumstances in the 1930s in the Southern United States. The story covers a compass of three years, amid which the fundamental characters experience critical changes. Scout Finch lives with her sibling Jem and their dad Atticus in the invented town of Maycomb, Alabama. Maycomb is a little, affectionate town, and each family has its social station relying upon where they live, who their guardians are, and to what extent their precursors have lived in Maycomb.
To Kill A Mockingbird follows Scout and Jem impacted by their father’s radical views in the 1930s. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is an iconic story with a great deal of dialogue. The dialogue and dialect in this story helps to reveal who the characters are. Dialect and dialogue in life help to create an image of a person as it does in fiction. Harper Lee uses dialogue and dialect to help bring her characters to life. Miss Maudie is depicted as selfless and educated. The same method also brings Calpurnia to life with the traits as accepting and protective. It also explores Atticus as wise and understanding man.