In “To Kill A Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee, Atticus Finch is a moral man because he sets good examples for his children because he portrays a leading figure by using his words, not fists, not judging a person until you get to understand who they are, and being able to get along with just about anyone. Atticus believed in fighting with words, not fists. “Hold your head high and keep those fists down”(Lee 76), as the story develops, Atticus reveals that he is a moral man by believing in the power of words, and that fists are not necessary in settling a feud/argument, I also envision that this applies especially to him because he is lawyer and uses words in his…
“To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee is a perfect example of how the plot progression of the story was closely related to the character development. Lee used Jean Louise, also known as “Scout” as a main model of character development, as she grows through her understandings of racism, how to handle social situations and her intelligence . The plot progression throughout the novel was very close in relationship of bildungsroman in the characters personal stories. This book being fiction is not true but it depicts how life was during the time period of the 1930’s. The characters also are very close to portraying common people of the time in Macon County of Alabama.…
Courage is characterized as mental or moral strength to surpass notions of fear. As demonstrated by Atticus Finch and Mrs Dubose in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, the development of courage gives the character’s strength and courage to hold their heads high, while fearing none. Harper Lee depicts the theme of courage incalculable amount of times, detailing courage as “ when you know you’re licked before you being, but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.” (Chapter 11, Page 124) All of the characters have an alternate kind of perspective of what courage is exactly, which will be examined in depth.…
Champion, Laurie. "Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird." Explicator 61.4 (Summer 2003): 234-236. Rpt. In Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 194. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center. Web. 27 Jan. 2011. Document…
Scout is a very unusual little girl, both in her own qualities and in her social position. She is unusually intelligent in many ways that is far more advanced than the other children who she associates herself with for example she learns to read before she is anywhere close to beginning school, and she is unusually confident for her age as you can see from the story she never backs down when it is time for her to fight boys without fear or remorse for their feelings, which is a normal quality for a young man of the area but most certainly not of a young lady, she is also unusually thoughtful she consistently worries about the essential goodness and evil of mankind and its effects on the common man no matter what race or color, and she always tries to act from a highly educated standpoint and with the best intentions for all who are involved. In terms of her social identity, she is unusual for being a tomboy in the prim and proper Southern world where the girls are all expected to have absolutely nothing to do with the life of the immature and annoying young men of the community of Maycomb.…
Analyse how a significant event illustrated one or more key theme(s) in the written text.…
A characteristic that Scout has is that she is curious. This curiosity stems from her being young, talked down to and not knowing much about the people around her. Scout is interested in knowing more about her mother, so she can feel closer to her. She asks about how her mother looked, how she acted and if she loved her mother. Noticeably, she is curious about her mother and she is looking for a connection between her and herself. Along with being curious scout can also be described as a tough person.…
Throughout the novel, Scout starts out as an ignorant boyish girl. She had no knowledge of the world and relied on her brother. At the end of the novel, she becomes more ladylike and less selfish. The lessons she learns are all in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. One of them is to judge a person, you have to look at things from their point of view.…
She was learning by observing her brother, father, and Dill that his trial was not equal to what it should be. Just because he was black he was being treated smaller and less important than what you should be treated in a case. Everyone should be treated equally. Scout learned compassion from this by feeling for Tom’s family. She got to see first hand that people were on his side fighting for him. “You all know of Brother Tom Robinson’s trouble. He has been a faithful member of First Purchase since he was a boy. The collection taken up today and for the next three Sundays will go to Helen-his wife, to help her out at home,” said Reverend Sykes (Lee 160) This right here is an example of Scout observing the compassion given by the church that Tom belongs too. They are spending the money they have to go toward the Robinson family helping with lawyers and whatever other problems they are dealing with in their current situation. “Alec, shut the doors. Nobody leaves here till we have ten dollars,” said Reverend Sykes (Lee 162) This is the part where people donated money, but not enough. They wanted to reach a goal of ten dollars to give to the family that day. This shows the compassion in really wanting to push forward and help this family. It shows Scout what people will do to help…
It’s crazy how an actual person’s life can be embodied in a character from a book and still not be called a biography! Up until now people still believe that Harper Lee’s book “To Kill A Mockingbird” had everything to do with her life as a young child. Especially when it comes to the character Scout finch. There are so many similar events and childhood life experiences that show through Scout when it comes to Harper Lee in the Book “To Kill a Mockingbird”.…
The book To Kill A Mockingbird is written through the perspective of an older Scout, Jean Louise Finch, reflecting on her childhood. Scout develops the most as a character throughout the book. Scout experiences and witnesses events that most girls around her age do not. She faces the cruel reality of the world she lived in. Experiencing these things at such young age forces Scout to mature very quickly. We see throughout the book that Scout is innocent, investigative, and affectionate.…
Scout’s upbringing was to be respectful to all those around her, including African-Americans, which is shown through the respect she has for her maid, Calpurnia. It was not until Scout and Jem went with Calpurnia’s Negro church that she first witnessed the division between blacks and whites. Lula, a black church member, said “You ain’t got no business bringin’ white chillun here—they got their church, we got our’n” (Lee, 1960, pg. 158). This showed Scout that black and white people did not associate with one another in public places because they lived separately. During the trial Jem was very confident on the evidence Atticus had presented to win the case, but Reverend Skyes said “Now don’t you be so confident, Mr. Jem, I ain’t ever seen any jury decide in a favor of colored man over a white man…” (Lee, 1960, pg. 279). This showed Scout that regardless of the fact the Tom Robinson was not guilty of the charges faced against him, he would still be convicted as guilty based solely on his race. Through the trial and other experiences Scout was now seeing the prejudice within Maycomb, also seeing that the prejudice goes both ways, which she wasn’t aware of at first. This caused her to see the injustice, and have more knowledge of her town instead of being…
Scout, as the narrator of the story, was at the forefront of all information and events that we learned about. This made it extremely easy to understand and decipher her emotions and the impact of each instance on the young child. I felt sympathy for her, as she was confronted by tough situations, but did not have the experience or knowledge that an older individual would use to make sense of the problem. Such a situation occurs when Scout is confronted by Cecil Jacobs in the schoolyard, who announced that Scout’s father was defending an African American man. Scout was upset, but she managed to control her aggression and withhold from fighting Cecil. She managed to control these feelings because she believed she would let Atticus down if she fought him, and instead talked to Atticus about what was said at the school. Scout didn’t understand why the kids were so interested in this man and why this case made everyone so upset with her father. This is one of the first examples of the maturing that Scout goes through in the course of the…
In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, the main theme is that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird. This metaphor of not killing mockingbird is clearly portrayed throughout the course of this novel. This theme is so important to the plot of this novel that the author decided to entitle the book after this very metaphor. Mockingbirds are birds that do not do anything wrong and they just give us music. Atticus is the main character in the novel that really stressed why it is a sin to kill a mockingbird. Mockingbirds are just a simple metaphor for the characters in this book who are killed, such as Mr. Raymond and Tom Robinson.…
Scout has good intentions when planning her actions, most of the time. The one exception was when she acted profanely towards poor little Walter Cunningham. Scout’s dictum to Jem was, “He made me start off on the wrong foot.” (Lee 25) Towards the middle of the book, Atticus is talking contentiously with a group of men in front of the jail house. Scout and Jem are hiding near the jail listening to the malevolent conversation which occurring between the men. Scout comes out of no where and starts to talk quaintly to one of the men, who is later revealed as Mr. Cunningham. Scout called to Mr. Cunningham, “Hey, Mr. Cunningham. How’s your entailment getting’ along?” (174) She did this so that the men would have all of their attention on her instead of her father and Tom Robinson. Scout’s benevolence most definitely saved her father’s life. When Jem was being fractious about losing his pants at the Radley place, Scout knew that she was to leave him alone. “As Atticus had once advised me to do, I tried to climb into Jem’s skin and walk around in it: if I had gone alone to the Radley place at two in the morning, my funeral would held the next afternoon.” (65) These were some of Scout’s formidable thoughts after the night at the Radley place had occurred.…