Atticus In To Kill A Mockingbird
Atticus is the father figure for his kids, Jem and Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. The Finch family lives in Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression. The kids spend much of their time playing with their gregarious neighbor, Dill, and spying on their reclusive and mysterious neighbor Boo Radley. When their father, Atticus, who is a widowed man and a respected lawyer, defends a black man named Tom Robinson against fabricated rape charges against a white girl, he is in/at a detriment. The trial, events following and the people they have interactions with, expose Jem and Scout to racism and stereotyping. This completely changes their view of the world. The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, uses characterization to portray how a child’s
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Dubose’s flowers. Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose lives two houses up the street from the Finch family. There are several rumors about her, including that she keeps a “CSA pistol concealed among her numerous shawls and wraps” (132). Jem and Scout hate her because she is rude to them, and scolds and insults them every time they go by her house. One time, Mrs. Dubose calls Atticus a ‘n-lover’. Jem gets furious and in retaliation, snatches Scout’s baton, running “flailing wildly up the steps into Mrs. Dubose’s front yard. … He [Jem] … cuts the tops off every camellia bush Mrs. Dubose owned, until the ground was littered” (137). When Atticus gets home that evening, he steps one foot in the door and yells to Jem to see if he was responsible for Mrs. Dubose’s yard. When Jem responds that he is, Atticus berates him and says he has to go over to her house and read to her for two hours everyday for a month. Atticus wants to make sure his kids have a consequence for when they do something not scrupulous/unethical, so they will learn from it and not do it again. As Jem reads to Mrs. Dubose, he and Scout witness the old, dying woman’s battle against her morphine addiction and learn the true meaning of courage. “It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what”, Atticus tells them (149). Even if Jem did not cut her flowers, Atticus would have still made Jem and Scout go read to her because Atticus vicariously wanted them to see the true meaning of courage from the bravest person he knew before she
Dubose’s flowers. Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose lives two houses up the street from the Finch family. There are several rumors about her, including that she keeps a “CSA pistol concealed among her numerous shawls and wraps” (132). Jem and Scout hate her because she is rude to them, and scolds and insults them every time they go by her house. One time, Mrs. Dubose calls Atticus a ‘n-lover’. Jem gets furious and in retaliation, snatches Scout’s baton, running “flailing wildly up the steps into Mrs. Dubose’s front yard. … He [Jem] … cuts the tops off every camellia bush Mrs. Dubose owned, until the ground was littered” (137). When Atticus gets home that evening, he steps one foot in the door and yells to Jem to see if he was responsible for Mrs. Dubose’s yard. When Jem responds that he is, Atticus berates him and says he has to go over to her house and read to her for two hours everyday for a month. Atticus wants to make sure his kids have a consequence for when they do something not scrupulous/unethical, so they will learn from it and not do it again. As Jem reads to Mrs. Dubose, he and Scout witness the old, dying woman’s battle against her morphine addiction and learn the true meaning of courage. “It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what”, Atticus tells them (149). Even if Jem did not cut her flowers, Atticus would have still made Jem and Scout go read to her because Atticus vicariously wanted them to see the true meaning of courage from the bravest person he knew before she