To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee: Character Analysis

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

Imagine you are a lawyer tasked with an impossible case, and everybody in your community is against you, but still there is a shred of hope you cling to. What might that be you ask? That to which you cling are your morals. In To Kill a Mockingbird Atticus Finch had been given the Tom Robinson case, where a black man was convicted of raping a white woman. As a single father of two children, he continues to reinforce his values throughout the trial and during his daunting task of raising his children. In To Kill A Mockingbird what Harper Lee suggests about the nature of morals is that you should try to stand up for what you believe in even if people oppose or reject your ideals. Even when faced with an insurmountable opposition you should stand up for your morals because in the end if your don't follow your beliefs you are just contributing to the problem. We should try to create a voice for what we believe in and impress that upon the next generation so they can continue to exercise their beliefs to make the world a better place.

redujice is not something we are born with; it is something that we grow to learn from who and what surrounds us, things that help to form our identity. Prejudice is an integral theme in Harper Lee’s, To Kill A Mockingbird. Prejudice is evident throughout the novel, not just in the appalling racism but also through, prejudice against different sexual orientations, gender constructs and feminism. Society had certain constructs that had to be met. Throughout To Kill A Mockingbird, Lee breaks the bounds to overcome barriers, and challenge social constructs.

​In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout Finch, and her brother Jem, learn the importance of seeing things through other people's eyes. At the beginning of the story, the people living in Maycomb County, can be considered "mockingbirds" because they are innocent. Their father, Atticus, leads as a strong example while defending Tom Robinson, a black man convicted for rape. The residents of Maycomb (besides the Finches) fail to see situations through other people's eyes. For example, when the trial takes place, most people do not have empathy toward Tom Robinson, resulting in some of those "mockingbirds" becoming killed. Trying to see situations through other people's eyes can keep someone from hurting somebody who is innocent.

Harper Lee’s renowned book To Kill a Mockingbird is highly praised for the lessons it teaches, it’s persuasive humor and how it tells a story of growth. It tells the story of Scout Finch as she learns and and grows in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930’s. Scout has a brother, Jem, who leads scout on adventures and through trials as they are taught about racism, empathy and courage. Scout's perspective allows a look into how growing up in her circumstances has affected her personally. (need another sentence here to lead to thesis) Harper Lee uses the characterization of Jem to show an alternate insight to growing up through the way he strays from being moral, how he tries to be more independent, and by when he reaches his breaking point.

In the book "To Kill a Mockingbird," Harper Lee writes about the importance of the mockingbird. It is stated in the story "It is a sin to kill a mockingbird," because they only produce beautiful music and do not cause the trouble that other animals do. Harper Lee presents this theme through several characters including Atticus, Tom Robinson, and Boo Radley. These characters represent the mockingbird because they were discriminated and attacked for no reason. Also, they sacrificed their good images in order to help other people face their conflicts.

In an commendable way to prove his loss his innocence, he uses Boo Radley to explain the evil that surrounds Maycomb. He declares to Scout: “I think I’m beginning to understand something. I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all this time… it’s because he wants to stay inside” (260). With this statement, Jem comes to the conclusion that the only reason Boo does not leave his house is because of the evil that encircles Maycomb. He concludes that Boo stays home because he fears the dangers and prejudice that exist in society. This conclusion provokes a dramatic change in Jem’s character, contributing to his growth. He is not the same innocent boy perceived at the beginning of the story, but now, he proves to be a matured young man who is aware of the cruelty within individuals.

Classic stories have a protagonist who involuntarily steps into struggles, obstacles, and times of self-reflection. The reader envisions the character throughout the plot fighting barriers and instinctively discovers how the character progresses from the beginning, many times having to face personal conflict, to see positive change in the end. In Harper Lee’s, To Kill A Mockingbird, the main focus and perspective are from Scout who comes face to face with challenges along her journey. She must learn to become the person who she wants to be without the negative impacts of the environment and traditional values she succumbs to. Through the significance of the Cunningham’s, Reverend Sykes, and Miss Maudie, the juxtaposition Scout embraces among these characters help her grow to understand the importance of seeing the

In “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, the plot is based on what Harper Lee herself has seen in her childhood, her family, neighbors, and the event that occurred near her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama in 1936. Racial prejudice was a major issue during this period of time and Lee incorporated this matter by displaying white men as the authoritative figures in Maycomb County. African Americans were always put down and proven guilty even if they were innocent because it was a white person’s word against a black’s. For example, “The Sheriff hadn’t the heart to put him in jail alongside Negroes, so Boo was locked in the courthouse,” (Lee, 14). Clearly, Boo was guilty of breaking the law and committing a crime but because of the fact that

Have you ever been judged for who your family is and not who you are? Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in the small town of Maycomb County, and countless families in this community have been given a certain title or characteristic that they are now known by. Since Maycomb is such a small place and not many newcomers have moved in over the years, the people began to think they could tell what a certain person would be like just by who their family was. The environment in which one is placed determines one’s success more than one’s genetic makeup and born ability. Aunt Alexandra gives Scout a speech that proves this is not the mindset in Maycomb.

People who do nothing but good are often tainted with rumors and harmed by other people. Harper Lee explores this idea in her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. To Kill a Mockingbird is a story about a seven-year-old girl named Scout growing up in the nineteen-thirties, her ten-year-old brother Jem and her friend named Dill who is the same age as she is. She lives in a very tight knit county called Maycomb in Alabama where everybody knows and hangs out with each other. However, there is one house where the inhabitants never come out of, the Radley house, where an old couple lives with their two adult sons.

Lessons that children are taught at a young age, are crucial to how they will be and treat others later in their adulthood. Harper Lee’s award winning novel takes place in the early 1930s over the course of two summers in Maycomb, Alabama. Two children named Scout and Jem learn multiple lessons. As they mature, they discover what the world is like and see the propaganda and prejudice occuring in their own town. With the racism, the sexism, and the judgements, these children are taught lessons and morals from adults and mentors. The novel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, demonstrates how by learning respect, courage, and empathy Jem and Scout are forced to grow up through meaningful lessons and conflicts that they experience and learn in their childhood that last a lifetime.

This is how childhood is presented in the beginning of To Kill a Mockingbird: it’s a period of time that’s looked back on with a sense of longing; one thralled from the reality by the child’s inability to understand the cruelties of the world. Harper Lee constructs a sheltered innocence that defines the children’s earlier years, which she subsequently cracks away at with the aid of the events that unfold in Maycomb. What is perhaps the most prominent of these events is Atticus’ defense of Tom Robinson, which acts as a major driver in showing the kids in the novel the true nature of society.

“Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum...There was no hurry, for there was no where to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb.” (Lee 6) In Harper Lee’s classic story To Kill a Mockingbird,

In Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird,” Mayella Ewell, a young woman as well as the daughter of Bob Ewell, lives a life of insolence and isolation in the town of Maycomb. As a Ewell, which they are familiarized as being vulgar, uneducated, and indigent, Mayella is disrespected by the people of Maycomb as well as by her father. During the court case, Atticus shows courtesy towards Mayella by addressing her as a miss and a ma’am, which is not surprising for his values of equality. Mistaking his manners with sarcasm, she replies with, “Won’t answer a word you say as long as you keep mockin’ me” (pg.181). Harper Lee is demonstrating the amount of disregard Mayella faces in her life, so much that courtesy can’t be identified as just that. Mayella finds that Atticus is ridiculing her for what she doesn’t have, respect from others. With a reputation such as Mayella’s, people treat her like an outcast. Her lonely life can be a reason to explain why she always asked for Tom Robinson’s company, she wanted to experience friendship and perhaps love for the first time. Her loneliness was so clear to see, even Scout, who still has their childhood-innocent mind, can see through it. Scout compares Mr.Dolphus Raymond’s “mixed children” to Mayella because they both don’t know where to stand in their social class, “white people wouldn’t have anything to do with her because she lived among pigs; Negroes wouldn’t have anything to do with her