Life Lessons in to Kill a Mockingbird

Life is not perfect; sometime we succeed and sometime we fail. But, the good thing is we can learn from our mistakes. In Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, there are many useful life lessons. These lessons can teach us how to be a considerable person and live a better life with others. The main three lessons are optimistic even in tragedy, see things from others’ perspective and respect others.

Firstly, Harper Lee shows us that we should feel optimistic even in tragedy. As Miss Maudie says “Grieving, child? Why, I hated that old cow barn. Thought of settin’ fire to it a hundred times myself, except they’d lock me up.” (Lee, 75). Her house is nearly all she has and it is on fire. Instead of feeling grieve; she is happy about it because she has a chance to build a small new house. Most of the time, we would feel very depressed when we lose something that is precious to us. But, feeling depressed will not going to take us anywhere. What we should do is to be optimistic because we already lose something very precious; we do not want to lose our smile also. Try to look for something new, something that would make us happy once again.

Secondly, we should see things from others’ perspective. As Atticus says “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.” (Lee, 30). Miss Caroline cannot accept that Scout already knows how to read and write, because it confuses the teaching formula. Instead of learning from her experiences in the classroom and adapting her teaching accordingly, she sticks to a method that she learned from adults. To Scout, this method is dull. Just as Atticus encourages Scout to place herself in another person’s position before she judges that person, Miss Caroline would do a better job like try to think about her students and respond to their needs rather than simply trying to harsh on their education.

Finally, respect each other is a very important lessons for all of us. As Calpurnia says to Scout “Hush your mouth! Don’t matter who they are, anybody sets foot in this house’s yo’ comp’ny, and don’t you let me catch you remarkin’ on their ways like you was so high and mighty! Yo’ folks might be better’n the Cunninghams but it don’t count for nothin’ the way you’re disgracin’ ‘em---if you can’t act fit to eat at the table you can just set here and eat in the kitchen!” (Lee, 24-25). When Walter Cunningham pours molasses all over his food, Scout asked him what on earth he was doing and that embarrasses him. Calpurnia called her into the kitchen and gave her a stern talking-to. Calpurnia tells Scout that Walter is company and she should never asked question the ways of how the company eats. Everyone is different and has their value. We should not treat other people differently just because they are different from us. Although in this society, we have poor people and rich people; rich people would more likely look down on poor people. But that is not right at all, we should respect each other and treat people as we want to be treated.

In conclusion, we can always be happy even in difficult situations, we can truly understand a person if we try to put our feet in their shoes and walk around with it and treat others people equally. To Kill a Mockingbird is a very useful and helpful novel. It has many life lessons that we can learn and use it in our daily life. So, we can live a peaceful life with others.