Page 127 of “To Kill a Mockingbird” is at a superficial level a passage about the main character’s father killing a dog that has rabies. However, by looking beneath the surface, we see Harper Lee conveying a sense of non-conformity against one specific social norm. Lee’s theme of non-conformity in the society is portrayed by Atticus putting his beliefs aside and shooting the dog, or in this case, racism. When the dog, Tim Johnson, is within shooting range, Heck the sheriff tries to give the gun to Atticus, but Atticus tries emphatically to get the sheriff to kill the dog by saying “I haven’t shot a gun in thirty years-”. Nobody else would shoot the racism in Maycomb. Even the sheriff didn’t have the courage or want to be any different than …show more content…
“I’d feel mighty comfortable if you did it now” In this backgrounding clause the sheriff, Mr.Tate, “[feels] mighty comfortable” when someone else does the work. This means that the sheriff could shoot the dog, but is just too afraid to go against the society norm. It also connotes a sense of laziness and lack of skills.The sheriff can also be a symbol of Maycomb as a whole. Maycomb is inactive, slow, tired, lazy and very close-minded. It is very ironic how Atticus is described as the deadest shot in Maycomb county, but he never shoots anymore. This is also a symbol of non-conformity. Atticus doesn’t want his children growing up with an idea that a man with a gun is brave and honest, but studying at school and courageousness is the key. This page is also a major turning point in the story because Jem finally gets out of his close-minded brain and looks at the world another way. It is also a turning point for Atticus. He realises that sometimes you have to sacrifice your beliefs for the good of others. He comprehends this when …show more content…
The dog is only a small statement of what racism is and was in the area. By looking in only part 1, one can see Atticus’s side of the Finch family nonconforming in a number of ways. Not only against the rest of the Finch family but also at the school, the teaching and activities that they do everyday. When Scout goes to the Finch Landing, Aunt Alexandra first excludes Scout by making her sit alone at the “small table”. The others “already graduated to the big table”. This shows that the Finches have to pass a ‘test’, or conform to the society norm. Scout goes against the society norm when she doesn’t “dress like a lady” in dresses and isn’t “the ray of sunshine” in her father’s life. Atticus teaches his children that they are equal and everyone has the right to have their own opinions and do what they think is right to a certain extent. On many occasions Atticus suspends judgement and respects others’ opinions and hears out what they want to say, and then makes his own judgement from that. At school Scout is a symbol of non-conformity because she already knows how to read. Most of the other children have been helping their parents do their jobs instead of learning materials for school. The first grade teacher, Miss Caroline makes Scout read and then, discovering that she can, “[looks] at me with faint disgust”(22). She finds out
Halfway through the novel, Scout encounters complications when she visits her relatives at Christmas and becomes entangled in a fistfight with her cousin over Atticus defending Tom Robinson. This is where Scout gets the first inklings of the idea that she, Atticus and Jem, do not belong with the social standards that the rest of the family follows. Further obstacles arise when Aunt Alexandra starts living with the Finch’s. Aunt Alexandra, more of a hassle than a help to Scout, attempts to bring her up to be a ‘proper young lady’, much to Scout’s displeasure. Scout does not feel as though she belongs to the societal standard of growing up to become a lady. The Finch’s family life is then juxtaposed with the life of the black population of the town. The black community has a lower social class than the white
Before Atticus shot the rabid dog, Jem and Scout, as well as the reader had a difficult time understanding Atticus and his personal values. After the dog is shot, Jem and Scout realize that Atticus hides some of his talents for personal reasons. His background sheds light on the overall development of his character as well as goes hand in hand with the development of Maycomb itself.The town of Maycomb can get trapped in a recurring cycle of habits and ignorance that are usually either carried out by the people, or by individuals that demonstrate habitual behavior. For example, while talking to Jem, Atticus exclaims, “I don’t know, but they did it. They’ve done it before and they did it tonight and they’ll do it again and when they do it-seems that only children weep” (Lee 213). In the above example, Atticus is referring to how the jury convicted Tom Robinson despite clear evidence suggesting inevitably otherwise. The fact that the people on the jury convicted Tom, merely because of his race, shows that they are demonstrating negative habitual behavior as well as ignorance. The people’s instinctive racial discrimination parallels the way in which, despite there being movements against it, Maycomb is still segregated into multiple parts. In fact, the town's area for African Americans is entirely separate from the city itself. The way in which the
The novel To Kill a Mockingbird is a timeless American classic that has been appreciated and loved by readers for decades. Harper Lee explores the story of a lawyer and his family in the deep parts of the South who is given the task of defending a black man accused with the rape of an adolescent white girl. Atticus Finch, the father of the protagonist and narrator Scout Finch, represents an elite group of minds that see beyond the invisible lines of race and wish to treat everyone with respect and equality. Atticus faces a series of external and internal struggles that brings meaning to the novel and reveals the overarching themes of the novel. Through several
Anthony Storr says that, “Originality implies being bold enough to go beyond accepted norms “ Social norms imply that everyone is the same or does something the same way, to break that you need to go out of your comfort zone and be bold enough to break those norms. Although it is very common for there to be social norms in society, when someone breaks one it can be the very first step to making the world a better place.
Harper Lee in her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, discusses the racism of the 19th century. In the story, six-year-old Scout Finch and nine-year-old Jem Finch live with their father, Atticus Finch, in a small, prejudiced town in Alabama. Told through Scout’s perspective, she and Jem watch Atticus fight for the guiltlessness innocence of African American, Tom Robinson. Atticus Finch proves his wisdom through the lessons he ingrains in his children about courage, treating everyone with kindness, and demonstrating equality. These life lessons help Jem and Scout grow up.
Don't go near him, he's just as dangerous dead as alive”(Page 105). Lee’s effectively uses symbolism to show the reader how Atticus is one of the protector’s of the Maycomb community. He protects Maycomb from the rabid dog. In the case of Tom Robinson, Atticus is trying to protect the community from its most dangerous element which is racism, displaying enough moral courage to try and make a difference in a very tough time period within the town. The implication of symbolism and metaphor, makes the reader moved by Atticus’s actions to take a clear stand against inequality caused by racism, even risking his own life, establishing him as the clear symbol of moral goodness and integrity.
Life is like a thrill ride; one never knows what will be in store for them. Many characters in the story To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee feel the same way about life, having experienced many surprising and unexpected turns of events. This story is about a sleepy southern town filled with prejudice, and a lawyer’s quest, along with his children Scout and Jem, to take steps in ridding the town of its prejudiced attitude. Despite being a white man, a lawyer named Atticus, defends an innocent black man accused of raping a white woman. However, everything does not go as was hoped, and the mindset of the society overpowered Atticus’s fair-minded argument. From this emerges a theme regarding the bigotry and bias overwhelming Maycomb: A
He knows that even if the whole town is against him, he needs to be different, and stand up for what he knows is right. In this situation Atticus was being a nonconformist, and trying to do what was right. I think that most people, today, know that black people used to be treated very poorly, and someone in the ousts sticking up for them was hard to come by. If no one ever made the choice like Atticus, then our world would never change. It is like if everyone only liked pizza, and did not want to change their opinion about it, they would never eat anything else. At some point someone has to take actions and try to eat more foods, it would make everything so much better. This relates back to Atticus and Maycomb because if he had nev decided to take the case, and try, Maycomb would never even start to change and except black people like Tom. Would you want a world with no change? I don't think so. It is important to have a world with change, and this all starts with one voice, the voice of a non-conformist, an upstander. The importance doing this is huge in the book. When Atticus decided to defend Tom, it created a spark of change. He changed the minds of some people, including his kids, Jem and Scout. In the end it is easy to see that the “ways of Maycomb” are slowly starting to change, just little by little. The only way this could have started is by one person standing out, and that was Atticus.
Society influenced every character in To Kill a Mockingbird in many more ways than one. People in the everyday world feel the stress and pressure of the world to conform to its standards, even if those standards aren’t who the people see themselves as being. Harper Lee and her protagonist, Scout, in To Kill a Mockingbird truly capture how, in such a short time, society can pressure playful girls into becoming the standard southern bell or rowdy boys into men. In the days of this setting, people weren't always given a choice or option of who they wanted to be. Too often in that time children were pressured to be exactly how they were expected to be in society. Men and women traded the flow of children's creativity for conformity instead.
“To Kill a Mocking Bird” is a novel which was written by Harper Lee. In my essay I will discuss how Harper Lee explores the theme of prejudice by looking at the writing techniques and how they affect people.
Miss Maudie's nut grass is a representation of how bits of gossip in Maycomb District are effortlessly spread, gossip is heard by practically every citizen, it seems. "If she found a block of nut grass in her yard, it was like the second Battle of the Marne: she swooped down upon it with a poisonous substance she said was so powerful it'd kill us all if we didn't stand out of the way."( To kill a mockingbird 47) "Why, one spring of nut grass can ruin a whole yard. Look here. When it comes fall this dries up & the wind blows it all over Maycomb county!"( To kill a mockingbird 47).The nut grass is, for the most part, coordinated towards how the town sees Boo Radley, as many rumors circulate around the house of the Radley's in general. Nobody seems to really know Boo Radley, so stories continue on and on until people like the Finch's can venture into Arthur Radley's shoes, in a manner of speaking. The knothole symbolizes the entrance of correspondence between Boo, Scout, and Jem. It furnishes Boo with a ‘window' into their life. They communicate only through the knothole. The soap children symbolize the purity and virtue that Boo finds in Scout and Jem which demonstrates that Boo knows more about Scout and Jem then they think. The tarnished medal represents Boo's childish side. Boo's way of bragging to the children to pick up their regard and to motivate them to identify with him. The pocket watch that wouldn't run symbolizes how time halted for Boo since his youth was stolen,
Folks." Scout was trying to say that all people are created equal. No one, by nature, is superior to anybody else. This is a very contrary view to what most people believed at that time, especially in the South. There was prejudice between races and prejudice between families. The most obvious theme of the book is racism. Staged in the early 1930’s in southern Alabama, racism was still undeniably present. Even though the amendments which freed slaves and gave them rights were passed more than sixty years prior, the culture of the south intertwined with racism. Interracial marriages were illegal. Different races could not attend the same schools. It was the law that whites and blacks could not even be put together in the same jail cells. Looking at these things, one can only imagine the upheaval when a Negro was accused of raping a white woman: but did this stop Atticus from standing up for justice? No, it didn’t. He knew perfectly well how criticizing eyes would view the case; no matter how glaring the evidence was, the people wouldn’t accept an African American’s word over a white man’s. Atticus saw all people as equal, regardless of their skin color and he knew what was the right thing to do. He was a friend and ally to the African American community and they respected them for it. Another example is the Cunningham family. When Walter comes over for lunch, Scout criticizes him but
When the rabies-infested dog is first shot by Atticus and is witnessed by his two children, they perceive their father as radically changed. With their only perception as their father as a sensible, respectable man who is true to his beliefs and wise interpretation of the world.
Outside the town limits, across the old sawmill tracks, lies a building with old paint crumbling off the sides and a cemetery lying right beside it. The brick-hard clay covered the land underneath both the churchyard and the cemetery. There lied crumbling tombstones and some new ones as well. Each one having an assortment of shattered coca-cola bottles, colorful glass, and dozens upon dozens of burnt out candles surrounding them. This was a happy place. The sweet aroma of Negro blossomed in the air, curating a scent of peppermint, snuff, and sweet lilac. It felt welcoming and homely. During the mid-1920s, in the darling town of Maycomb, Alabama, not all people had such a humbleness to them. Many people were not treated with the same respect and kindness as others, as shown in the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird. Throughout the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, shows concerns about social class and how it affects everyone around them. Being different during the mid-1930s was excruciating, even though they were factors that can’t be controlled, and Lee wanted to make a point about that.
Within Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird”, Lee creates a sense of unconformity through the characterization of Atticus being lawful and supportive on the idea of mutual concessions which separates him from the social norms of being a man in Maycomb.