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To Kill A Mockingbird Hardship Analysis

Decent Essays

C. S. Lewis once said “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny”. Hardships help to define people into who they will eventually be. Seeing others hardship forces people into considering what would happen if they were to face these hardships. Sometimes it takes people some time to consider how they would face these hardships because in order to put themselves in someone else’s shoes and consider their pain, they must first consider themselves equal. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee develops the idea that individuals witnessing hardship learn and grow emotionally from it by gaining humility, empathy, and respect for others pain.
Initially, Scout Finch is introduced as a young, somewhat self-centered five-year-old. She is uninterested in adult problems and happy to continue her carefree young life as most five-year-olds would. Scout learns to thrive without a maternal influence that most children receive. The discovery of Dill in the collard patch marks the beginning of a long friendship-and an early engagement. Dill's persistent attempts to catch a glimpse of Boo Radley draws Scout into the mix. Scout attempts to solve a problem by first taking action, an approach that often gets her into trouble. As an example, Scout recognizes that the Cunningham’s are poor when she defends Walter Cunningham Jr for not having a lunch at school, but she doesn’t understand his poverty till later in the book. When Scout first truly witnesses someone else’s hardship, in the form of the Cunningham’s poverty, she is confused. While eating dinner at Scouts house as a guest, Walter douses his food in syrup. Perplexed and confused, Scout calls him out on it. Not realizing that to Walter, syrup is a treat, Scout demonstrates her innocence and ignorance to the poverty around her.
However, after witnessing others hardships in the forms of poverty, addiction and discrimination, she grows and develops to be a strong willed, humble and empathic child. Scout learns from her father Atticus how to show respect to everyone regardless of color because everyone deserves equality in life. The trail of Tom Robinson, an African-American man, has been accused of raping a white woman, and race tensions are coming to a

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