Many stories have themes or a moral. These stories teach the reader a certain lesson that should be important enough to remember. But, other stories can have multiple themes, each interpreted differently by separate people based on their own experiences and opinions. One such story that contains multiple lessons is a tale of racial injustice and prejudice. This story is known as “To Kill a Mockingbird.” In “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, the theme that being biased will give one the wrong image of people, is developed through a character named Scout.
One basic example of this theme occurring in the story is when Scout thinks that her father has no impressive talents or mentionable qualities. Unlike the fathers of other children,
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Jem, who is older than Scout, is more mature than her and understands the injustice of racism at the trial. Scout on the other hand is biased to believing that everyone is naturally good at heart, mainly because she does not understand prejudice. Jem starts losing his innocence though, and understands that not everyone is pure the way that Scout imagines they are. Scout does not have her morale shattered the way Jem had his after they found out that Tom Robinson had lost the case for this reason. Scout does not have the capability to understand what evils were really occurring behind the scenes of the trial, and instead views the world through the lens of what she wants to see instead of the lens of reality. But, the way Scout interprets the actions of people is altered after Bob Ewell reveals his evil side and tries to murder both Scout and Jem. This event ultimately leads to her acceptance of a world that is …show more content…
From the start of the story, Scout as well as the other children, talked of Boo as an urban legend. A student named Cecil Jacobs would even take the long route just to avoid the Radley house. In the last few pages of the novel however, Scout is saved by Boo after he stabs Bob Ewell to protect her. As Scout starts to become unbiased about people being deities of good, she also starts to become unbiased about her view of Boo Radley. At this point of the novel Scout has experienced her share of evil and now understands why Boo would lock himself up in his house all the time. It was so that he could hide from the evil that was outside of the protection of his property. This knowledge changes Scout from a girl who would try to avoid Boo at all costs, to girl who ends up escorting Boo home. Also, she states that “...you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.” After standing on the porch of the Radley house for just a short while, Scout finally ends up seeing the world through Boo’s
Scout’s perspective of Boo Radley certainly changes throughout the many years that pass during the course of the novel. At the beginning of the novel Scout learns through the gossip of the community that Boo is a terrible, scary person. The stories that are told make Scout and everyone else think that Boo is just an absolute monster and everyone believes all the stories that are told about the Radley family. Because of the stories that Jem and Scout hear, they are terrified to even get close to the Radley house. They were told that Boo only comes out during the night when the moon was down, and looked through people’s windows. There was
She would get a better understanding of this as the novel progresses. Scout also learns more about maturity when she experiences hypocrisy from her teacher, “Over here we don’t believe in persecuting anybody. Persecution comes from people who are prejudiced. Pre-ju-dice,” She is contradicting herself, saying that it is acceptable to persecute blacks but not Jews. It dawned on Scout that people are hypocrites and have double standards when it suits them. The biggest step the children took towards growing up was during the Tom Robinson trials. There, the children received full exposure to the evils, malevolence, prejudice and sorrow of the cruel world as a white man accuses an innocent black man for raping when all Tom ever wanted to achieve was to help others. The children understood what was going on completely and was therefore changed because of it. At the unexpected climax of the novel, the children have an unpleasant encounter with Bob Ewell who wanted to take revenge on Atticus for humiliating him by killing his children. This was an absolutely outrageous act of insanity but also taught the children how dangerous reality could be, finalizing their journey into adulthood.
When Scout finished escorting Boo back home, she observes, “I turned to go home. Street lights winked down the street all the way to town. I had never seen the neighborhood in this angle. There was Miss Maudie’s, Miss Stephanie’s-there was our house, I could see the porch swing…” (373). Here, Scout first imagines a different person’s perspective, as she gazed around the neighborhood as if she had seen it for the first time in a long time. As Scout then imagined how the neighborhood would have looked from the Radley Yard, “Winter, and a man walked into a street, dropped his glasses, and shot a dog. Summer, and he watched his children’s heart break. Autumn again, and Boo’s children needed him” ( 374). Scout was able to envision how Boo saw the neighborhood as the seasons pass in this coming of age scene in which Scout clearly realizes how it felt to be Boo Radley, and how it was different than the rumors led to believe. After Scout meets Boo Radley, Harper lee is able to use this scene to convey Boo’s character with his
When Scout first comes about the idea of Boo Radley he believes what he has heard about him. Boo Radley was supposedly a “malevolent phantom” who stayed inside his house all day with a cursed property (Lee 10). Every time Jem, her older brother, and Scout would walk by the Radley house, they
In the novel “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee is about a girl named Scout telling the story of how her older brother Jem broke his arm. Scout went from innocent to experiencing hate, racism, and threat by other people. As she explains how it all happened, she tends to be in difficult situations with her brother Jem and experienced a few threats by her classmates and adults. Her father; Atticus, was a lawyer who was criticized by the entire white race because he defended a black man in court. Scout was a bright child who knew how to read at a young age and tend to understand all things she's been taught, but there were some things she did not fully understand until she had to experience them.
Starting with her neighbor, Boo Radley, since the beginning of the book, it is evident that Scout is still in a child-mind set and sees the world in an innocent perspective. In Jem’s description of Boo, Scout’s belief
The main idea of the book “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, is about how Scout is going to learn about evil forces in her life like racism and inequality. Scout is a 6-year-old girl, who is an extremely smart for her age and is quite curious, has a brother named Jem, who is in the fifth grade, her father, Atticus, who is a lawyer, and her mother, who died when she was two years old, so she doesn’t have her in her life. While living in the town of Maycomb, she is learning about the inequality towards women and all the racism that is in this town too.
Scout is considered an unknowing kid by many people until she models her father’s behavior and advice he gives her. “You never really understand a
Have you not ever understand something? In the screenplay to kill a mockingbird by Robert Mulligan. Bob Ewell did something that will change tom's life. A Good theme that was shown in the book To Kill a Mockingbird is one person's wrongdoing can release evil into the entire community.
In the beginning she was immature and mischievous. She was always playing around with Jem and Dill trying to sneak a look at Boo Radley. She doesn’t take the time or effort to find out who the real Boo is she just goes along with the myth that he is crazy. After Boo saves Scout and Jem’s lives from Bob Ewell Scout then realizes that the myths about Boo Radley are not true. In the last chapter Scout walked Boo home and reflects what it must be like to “stand in his shoes and walk around in them”(pg.
Scout's reaction of when she hears Miss. Gate announce that Tom Robinson's conviction was because of his color shows an example of her maturation. The teacher's hypocrisy of Hitler prejudicing against Jewish people even though she despises blacks just as much confuses Scout. Later that night, she asks Jem, "How can you hate Hitler so bad an' then turn around and be ugly about folks right at home" (Lee 331). Scout realizes that people's views on certain topics are unfair, as is the case of Miss. Gates. The loss of innocence is shown when she realizes that people have double standards for no intention.
I came by to see you today but you were not available. I will stop by for a final goodbye hug on Monday, I made an appointment for 11.
At the beginning of the novel, Boo Radley, Scout’s neighbor that never came out of his house, was a terror to Scout. She couldn't understand why he never came out because she hadn't learned how to see things from other’s points of view. “Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough” (Lee 374). At the end of this novel, Scout understands how Boo saw the world and why he didn't come out until he needed to save Jem and Scout. Just standing on the Radley porch made her realize this but without learning the lesson beforehand, she would have never thought to even look at the world form Boos point of
Boo is a very important character in the book, in fact, the novel opens with Scout and her interactions with Boo and is closed by it too. Scout learns about Boo though the gossip passed on through neighbors in the community. The stories are scary and many out of context, however, Scout doesn’t seem to notice this till after the trial. At the beginning of the book she plays a game that involves Boo, and she tries to torment him into coming out. When Scout describes Boo Radley she says, "People said 'Boo' Radley went out at night and peeped in people’s windows. That he breathed on flowers and they froze instantly. They said he committed little crimes in the night but not one ever saw him." This shows that Scout sees Boo as an object of fascination instead of a human being. She does not acknowledge that he has emotions or feelings, she just views him as a monster who does horrible things to people. Furthermore, we can learn that Boo is not a very loved or respected figure in the community due to his strange way of living. As the trial takes place Scout matures and her level of complex thinking increases, but it is not until October 24th that we see how her perception of Boo changes since in the trial she saw how badly they treated Tom Robinson and she directly connected it to Boo “I hugged him and said, “Yes, sir. Mr. Tate was right, it’d be sort of
CIPD, 2012 defines resourcing and talent planning as “Ensuring that the organisation is able to identify and attract key people with the capability to create competitive advantage and that it actively manages an appropriate balance of resource to meet changing needs, fulfilling the short and long-term ambitions of the organisation strategy.”