Essay on To Kill a Mockingbird

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SHORT TEXT RESPONSES Scout is a young but intelligent girl who is trying to understand the world. Scout also has a firm belief that “there’s just one kind of folks. Folks,” which means that she thinks that all people are the same and the fact that you can read or write doesn’t change that. Her belief contrasts with Jem’s belief that Maycomb folks are divided and he thinks that Scout’s thoughts are naïve. At the start of the novel she judges people easily as shown when she gives Ms. Caroline her view on Walter before she ever had a conversation with him and also shown when she judged Ms. Caroline by thinking that assuming Ms. Caroline was wrong when she was just doing what she thought was right. Over the course of the novel Scout grows to have a broader mind to understand people more and to understand more views with the saying from Atticus “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.” Scout also discovers that some things are not what they seem to be during the trial with discovering Dolphus Raymond is not a drunk although he pretends to be. She also finds out that the people in Maycomb, although seeing that Tom is actually innocent, still let their prejudice take over and said that he was guilty. Even though her pure belief in the good of people is cracked, she still holds hope that people are still good.

Atticus is a lawyer who’s sense of justice is strong and he tries to teach his children what is right and wrong but not by telling them straightly but by trying to let them discover for themselves. For example, when he knows that Jem, Scout and Dill are making a game about the Radley’s, instead of telling them outright not to do it, he gives them a choice to stop with his warning but they continue playing he tells them to “stop tormenting that man [Boo]” A bad point about him though is that he is often not at home and is not sporty and doesn’t have a manly skill like going hunting or playing football which is what Jem and Scout want him to be like. But although he is not often there, when he is there he gives good advice and lessons to his children. He is wise and understands that people are not all good but also have the bad so you have to appreciate the good and understand the bad by “climbing into his skin and walking around in it.” At the start of the novel you can see that he is not a doting father but he does have a soft spot for Scout and Jem that is shown when during the evenings Scout climbs onto his lap. Atticus’s understanding of good and evil is that although there is evil in the world, good still exists and he has hope for the people in Maycomb to be more moral and not be prejudiced. And at the end of the book, when Jem breaks his arm because of the attack by Bob Ewell, Atticus was “there all night and he would be there when Jem woke up in the morning” to provide comfort to his son from the awful events of the previous night. He tries to teach the right and wrong of the world by subtly revealing at times that it is wrong that people have prejudice against the Negroes and it is not right.

During the trial of Tom Robinson, a significant point that was game-changing was that Scout, Jem and Dill watch the trial from the coloured balcony with the black people. It is a significant point because it is physically representation of their point of view being different from the rest of the white population of Maycomb county. Their point of view is different to everyone else’s because they are think that justice will always win and that everyone will be given the same chance to redeem themselves if framed in the courtroom. But while the children think like that, it is not the same for the adults who are biased and will side with the white person because of their belief that black people are tricky and evil. Mr. Gilmer for example shows that he thinks that black men lust after white women simply because they’re
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