...Influential Themes in the book To Kill a Mockingbird The history of the world has lots of social problems that still exist in the world today. We deal with an extensive amount of racism all around the world; therefore, it is still a struggle for the world to learn how to live in peace and harmony. Harper Lee’s book, To Kill a Mockingbird, captures many themes, but the most influential life lessons deal with racism, perspective, and morality. Racism is one of the most influential themes in the book. Lee explains very well about the problems of racism in the south; in other words, the theme of racism in the book teaches an important message that all people need to learn. Atticus says, “Remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” That was the...
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...Atticus Finch is one of the most steadfastly honest and moral characters in “To Kill a Mockingbird“ by Harper Lee and his character remains, for the most part, unchanged throughout “To Kill a Mockingbird”. As any character analysis of Atticus Finch should note in terms of the plot of “To Kill a Mockingbird” he begins as an upstanding citizen who is respected and admired by his peers and even though he loses some ground during the trial, by the end of To Kill a Mockingbird he is still looked up to, both by his children and the community as whole—with all class levels included. As a lawyer in To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch represents everything that someone working in the justice system should. He is fair, does not hold grudges, and looks at every situation from a multitude of angles. As Miss Maude quite correctly puts it in one of the important quotes from “To Kill a Mockingbird”by Harper Lee, “Atticus Finch is the same in his house as he is on the public streets” (87) and this could also be said of how he behaves in the courtroom. He is a skilled lawyer and without making outright accusations in a harsh tone he effectively points out that Bob Ewell is lying. Even more importantly, the subject of this character analysis, Atticus Finch, is able to gracefully point out to the jury that there although there probably are a few black men who are capable of crimes, “this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men” (208). His understanding of...
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...To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, is a critically acclaimed novel narrated by Scout FInch, following an important three years in her life. This novel became an instant best seller, an Academy Award-winning film, and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize. This book in some states are part of the English curriculum to be taught in high schools, while in other states it is banned from school libraries. This book arises much controversy because it is based around white supremacy in the South, and how African Americans were harshly treated. It reveals the ugly truth on how society handled cases in the court and the biased verdicts as the result. It also reveals the existence of good and evil in a small town, and how some adults...
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...To Kill a Mockingbird- Harper Lee To kill a mockingbird is a story about innocence, knowledge, prejudice, courage and growing up. The main character is Scout Finch. The book is about what she learns about people and life over the course of those two years. The book takes place in 1930s in Maycomb, Alabama. She lives with her father Atticus, her brother Jem and their cook. Scout´s father is a lawyer. Scout basically learns 4 major lessons of the course of the book; she learns them partly from Atticus and partly from her own experience. The first lesson; is that you don’t understand someone until you put yourself in their shoes. She takes a while to master this one. Across the street from where Scout lives, lives Boo Radley or Arthur Radley, the mysterious neighbor who saves Scout and Jem from being killed. The second important lesson is that you don’t kill a mockingbird, Atticus gives the children air rifle, and they are allowed to kill whatever bird but mockingbirds because mockingbirds don’t eat anyone’s plants or harm anything, they just makes music. A mockingbird has a metaphoric meaning too, anyone who is weak and defenseless. To kill a mockingbird is to take advantage of someone weaker than you. The second face of the book involves Tom Robinson. Tom is a black man who been arrested in charge with raping a white women named Mayella Ewell. Atticus has been appointed as a defend attorney and he is determined to do a good job at it even if he knows he going...
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...“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 it” (Lee 85). The advice given by Atticus Finch to his daughter in the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, manifests the idea that compassion is based on sympathy. To understand why an individual acts a certain way, even if not agreed upon, reveals how one’s compassion can vary. Being in someone else’s skin proves to show that unless experiencing the other’s adversities, it’s difficult to understand what kind of background someone is coming from. Literature opens the window to a variety of life lessons that can be taught for the greater good. Throughout the book, To Kill A Mockingbird, life lessons like what the...
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...long history of discrimination in the United States. Harper Lee’s book, To Kill A Mockingbird, speaks of a small town called Maycomb, where young Scout Finch lives. Scout’s father, Atticus, bears a striking resemblance to Harper Lee’s father. This is just one of the many parallels between Monroeville, where Lee grew...
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...In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Atticus teaches his children many lessons about life. Atticus teaches his children the importance of acceptance, how to avoid stereotyping, and lastly how racism shows the people of Maycomb’s true colours. To conclude Atticus makes it clear to his children that they should never judge a person before getting to know them. Firstly,stereotyping is the main thing in To Kill a Mockingbird.Scout and Jem learn from their mistakes or they learn from the people themselves. For example, Scout judged Mr.Dolphus Raymond because she thought he was a drunk and he had mulatto children from a black woman. She thought that it was wrong to speak to a drunkard and to even deal with someone that loves and lives with black people. But he confronts her and Dill, as a result he makes a simple point that he prefers blacks over his kind because they are uptight and are hypocrites. The white people have their views and judgemental ways against the black community. Mr.Dolphus Raymond tells them this so they can change their views on how they see people. "I try to give 'em a reason, you see. It helps folks if they can latch onto a reason... folks can say Dolphus Raymond's in the clutches of whiskeythat's why he won't change his ways... that's why he lives the way he does." (Chapter 20)... I shouldn't be here listening to this sinful man who had mixed children and didn't care who knew it, but he was fascinating. (Chapter 20). People stereotype ...
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...Mara Arisman 8A Literature March 06,18 To Kill A Mockingbird Essay To Kill a Mockingbird was written by Harper Lee. This novel is set in Maycomb, Alabama around 1933. Scout, the narrator, Jem, her brother, and her father, Atticus Finch, have to help a black man, Tom Robinson, who was convicted of rape. Along the way, they meet many new people and learn a lot of valuable lessons like never kill a mockingbird. To Kill a Mockingbird is set in a “sleepy town” called Maycomb, Alabama around 1933 during the Great Depression. Scout said that Maycomb is a “tired old town” where “people seem to move slower” (6 Lee). This is s small town so everyone knows everything about everybody. Southern Alabama has “summers that drift into autumn, and autumn...
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...In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, there are many lessons that each character learns throughout the novel. Scout, the main character, learns the most from many different experiences she is able to witness. Although Scout’s formal schooling is disappointing, she learns many valuable lessons from real life. Scout learns many valuable lessons based on things that she and other characters in the novel get to experience. For example, in the novel, Scout and Jem get air-rifles, yet Atticus will not teach them how to shoot them. This leads to Miss Maudie explaining that their father said “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy...they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a...
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...Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel centered around a few years in Jean Louise “Scout” Finch’s childhood, featuring her experiences and the lessons that she learns growing up in the 1930s. Scout and her brother, Jeremy “Jem” Finch, mature in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, in a one-parent home. Their father and aunt, Atticus and Alexandra, raise them with help from Calpurnia, their African American maid. Harper Lee weaves several different themes throughout the novel, but some are more prominent than others. Lee develops the main themes of growth, protection of innocence, and perception throughout To Kill a Mockingbird, disguised in the form of lessons learned during the narrator’s childhood. Harper Lee reveals her theme of growth...
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...(in 1935). That is also something Scout learns. She begins to realize that if the people would try to see the world through Mayella’s eyes, they might understand what brought her to commit her crime: isolation and loneliness. If the people looked through Tom’s eyes, they would understand the cruelty and injustice behind the Jim Crow Laws. In the last chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout is attacked by Bob Ewell, who is killed when Scout is saved by Boo Radley. Once she arrives home after the attack, Scout finally recognizes Boo. She immediately begins making accommodations for his shyness, expressing her understanding of his introverted personality: “Feeling slightly unreal, I led [Boo] to the chair farthest from Atticus and Mr. Tate. It was in deep shadow. Boo would feel more comfortable in the dark” (272). Scout also understands completely when Heck Tate hints that it was Boo who killed Mr. Ewell: “‘Scout,’ he said, ‘Mr. Ewell fell on his knife. Can you possibly understand?’ … ‘Yes sir, I understand,’ I reassured him. ‘Mr. Tate was right.’ … ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Well, it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?’” (276). Scout knows how much it would pain Boo to be put in the spotlight,...
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...Cristal Gonzalez Mrs. Patterson English III - 5B 14 May 2013 Why Try to Erase History? To Kill a Mockingbird, for various reasons is marked top and a must read before you die, because of its outstanding lessons through the eyes of a little girl. This book teaches history and life lessons better than any textbook or teacher. Society strongly believes there is no reason for banning this book, because it teaches about racism, shows courage, and gives a mental vision of how society has changed since then. It’s very difficult when people have decided your verdict by just seeing the color of your skin. People shouldn’t be judged by how they look; in the end we’re all human, nothing more nothing less. There are different types of courage shown throughout the book. It ranges from how courageous a kid could be and an adult too. Society has come a long way, and it has changed for the best. When you realize in the book how society was, you think to yourself how could people be so cruel? Although years after, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself said, “…I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character…” (King). To Kill a Mockingbird, teaches racism better than any textbook, “I thought it taught things about racism and tolerance better than a history textbook,” (Oakley Ebscohost). Even though racism is a sensitive subject to some, people of today’s world need to know what kind...
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...To kill a Mockingbird Journal entry #1 “Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop…” Pg: 5 This quotation on chapter one is Scout’s introductory description of Maycomb. Scout emphasizes the slow pace, Alabama heat, and old fashioned values of the town. She writes of time when she “first knew” Maycomb, indicating that she embarks upon this recollection of her childhood much later in life, as an adult. It makes reference to the widespread poverty of the town, implying that Maycomb is in the midst of the great depression. As stated in the quote “There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with.” As been specified above Maycomb county was a ghost town. In the text on page six it clarifies how mysterious it was, “Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself.” To kill a Mockingbird Journal entry #2 “I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” Pg: 20 On chapter two scout talks about how she takes reading for granted. Losing it would be devastating to her. Scout compares it to not breathing anymore, reading, for little kids, is not a priority in Maycomb. Scout, however, has Atticus her father teach the incredible joy of reading to his children. This applies to the second sentence about breathing. Although she does not think to herself ‘I love breathing’ for there she does not realize...
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...the event stays with them forever, and it affects them In the future. The emotion by our childhood sometimes gets in our way of making our choices. in the book To Kill a Mockingbird, Helen Keller tells us a story about a five year old girl named Scout dealing with problems during her childhood and how the events that happen to her make her understand what problems that she may have in the future. The whole situation happen with Boo Radley, in Maycomb there was many rumors of horrible things he ever did and at the end there were all lies. It also happened with Tom Robinson but it was worst since he was an African American and back in 1930’s many people were racist and with one little bad situation they got in they got sent to jail. Tom and Boo are both of them both experience situations that people may believe they did and yet the still judged. Helen shows the symbol of the mockingbird with Tom and Boo Radley they don't bother anyone and yet they still judge them. When Atticus Tells Scout it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird she didn't understand why and when she asked Miss Maudie she tells her “Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people’s gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”[Lee 90] Scout whatever rumor she hears she believes everything they say, but when Atticus sees what Scout believes is truth he tells her,” You never really understand...
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...People are Different In works of literature authors often use foil characters to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of main characters. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, the author uses the character Bob Ewell (minor character) and Atticus Finch (major character) to reveal the theme of respect. Atticus is a well dressed, politeful man who teaches his kids important life lessons. Bob is a rude, racist man who does not work, or take care of his family. Within the novel, the two foil characters give the reader a better understanding of a parent's respect towards themselves and others. In the novel Atticus strives to teach his kids important life lessons. Respect is the main lesson that Atticus stresses the most. Often, Atticus will set a good example of how to be respectful to elders by saying, “Good Evening, Mrs. Dubose!” (Lee 133) even after she was rude to his children. This shows his children...
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