To Kill A Mockingbird: Character Analysis

Finding out how cruel society is at a young age is a lot to take in but gives so much in return. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, two characters Jem and Scout are introduced and learn many valuable lessons that do not necessarily come from school education. Throughout the book, the idea of valuable lessons are more found in real life rather than school education is brought up numerous times. The school life of Jem and Scout is not mentioned in the book that much but from the scenes they are mentioned it seems to the reader that the school is protecting them and holds them back. In real life, Scout and Jem are revealed to court cases, racism, murder, and etc. showing that real life is giving more valuable lessons rather than
One evidence from the book shows how a real life situation is more valuable in lessons to Scout and Jem “After all, if Aunty could be a lady at a time like this, so could I” (Lee 271). This quote shows that though Scout and Aunt Alexandra heard about Tom being shot to death, Scout realizes how to turn this situation to help herself mature taking after Aunt Alexandra. This shows that when a real life situation, such as Tom Robinson being killed, is brought up it teaches Scout how to turn any situation to help her mature which is a valuable lesson that cannot be learned in class. In class, schools try to protect the students from the real world and perfect the world but in reality there is no way to do that. Miss Caroline, the teacher to Scout, talks about in the book how Scout should not be reading and tells her to stop reading and writing “Miss
Miss Caroline talks about Hitler in her class but once someone questions her judgement she changes subjects “Miss Gates said, “When you get to high school, Cecil, you’ll learn that the Jews have been persecuted since the beginning of history, even driven out of their own country. It’s one of the most terrible stories in history. Time for arithmetic, children’” (Lee 249). In this quote you can see that Cecil has asked a question that is outside of the box, a valuable lesson on asking interquite questions, and the school responds by changing the subject and having the students wait until they are older to fulfil the question. The cycle here is that if the students have a question they want answered, hold off until later in the school year which gives the school more income causing a cycle towards the students and the families. Another valuable lesson that Jem and Scout have learned was from Atticus and the courthouse “ In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins. They’re ugly, but those are the facts of life’” (Lee 224). This quote talks about how racism affects the judgement within the court and that is how society is. The lesson that Jem and Scout learn from this is how wrong society is and to stand up to your own judgement rather than listening to the social norm.