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Theme Of Illusions In To Kill A Mockingbird

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We can all agree that children have different illusions about what the world is really like around them. Harper Lee's novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is a bildungsroman that shows how a young girl named Scout grows up in Maycomb county with her father Atticus and her older brother Jem to guide her. The novel is set in the 1930’s in Maycomb county, a southern town where most of the neighbors get along with each other. Some of the neighbors have secrets that only the adults know, but eventually Jem and Scout find out what those secrets are, which challenges the illusions they have about their perfect little hometown and the friendly neighbors that live around them. In To Kill a Mockingbird it demonstrates a theme in the book about how things you believe to be true when you’re a child turn out to be different as you start to see them through adult eyes.

Jem and Scout’s illusion is challenged when they go to the jail and see a mob of people talking to Atticus. Jem, Dill, and Scout wanted to know what Atticus was doing at the Maycomb Jail visiting Tom Robinson. When they got to the jail they saw a mob of people standing in front of the jail cell where Atticus was guarding it. They were able to hear the conversation the men had with Atticus and one of the men said,¨'You know what we want', another man said. 'Get aside the door, Mr. Finch¨(151). This moment shows Jem and Scout’s illusion being challenged because they believed that everyone in the world is treated equally when in

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