To Kill A Mockingbird
Book Report
To Kill a Mockingbird
The coexistence of good and evil is an eternal question that has been bothering people for centuries. Many writers tried to explore the moral nature of human beings- whether they are essentially good or essentially evil. To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee is a superb example of such exploration of good and evil in a human nature.
Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama. It is a small quiet town very similar to Maycomb, where the action in To Kill a Mocking Bird takes place. Actually, the novel is semi autobiographical in many ways. Just like Atticus Finch Lee’s father was also a lawyer. When Harper Lee was a five-year-old girl nine young black men were unjustly accused of …show more content…
The narrator is a six-year-old Jean Louise Finch (Scout). She lives with her elder brother Jem, her father, Atticus Finch (a lawyer) and African-American nanny Calpurnia. Their widowed father practices a particular way of upbringing his children. He tries to make them understand that people are not to be judged by their racial, social or religious affiliation. Atticus knows that the world around is so cruel and unjust that realization of this fact can ruin innocent hearts of his children. That’s why he tries to teach them to admire good qualities in people and to understand and forgive bad ones. In Chapter 3 we read such words that Atticus tells Scout, “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”. In such simple words he managed to pass a great moral lesson to his daughter. And Scout tries to follow her father’s advice with more or less …show more content…
In Chapter 10 we find the following words, “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy . . . but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” Mockingbirds are innocent and harmless people destroyed by the evils of the world. Throughout the novel we can identify many characters as mockingbirds (Jem, Tom Robinson, Dill, Boo Radley, and Mr. Raymond). But Tom Robinson is the most prominent example of innocence destroyed by the people’s most terrible and disgusting vices: racial prejudices, ignorance, arrogance and cruelty. Tom was shot during his attempt to escape from the prison. He was a crippled man, he has no rights, no freedoms, and he left his widowed wife without any means of subsistence… But nobody cared except for Atticus Finch and his children who sympathized with Tom very much.
Despite the gloominess of the plot the end of the story is not without hope. Thanks to Atticus Finch’s wisdom and generosity his children learnt to understand and to forgive other people, who very often do bad things without realizing the disruptiveness of their actions. We can be sure that whatever evil Scout and Jem encounter in their lives they will not lose their faith in good and justice or become cynical, but on the contrary this faith will become stronger and these children will be able to choose right between good and
To Kill a Mockingbird
The coexistence of good and evil is an eternal question that has been bothering people for centuries. Many writers tried to explore the moral nature of human beings- whether they are essentially good or essentially evil. To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee is a superb example of such exploration of good and evil in a human nature.
Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama. It is a small quiet town very similar to Maycomb, where the action in To Kill a Mocking Bird takes place. Actually, the novel is semi autobiographical in many ways. Just like Atticus Finch Lee’s father was also a lawyer. When Harper Lee was a five-year-old girl nine young black men were unjustly accused of …show more content…
The narrator is a six-year-old Jean Louise Finch (Scout). She lives with her elder brother Jem, her father, Atticus Finch (a lawyer) and African-American nanny Calpurnia. Their widowed father practices a particular way of upbringing his children. He tries to make them understand that people are not to be judged by their racial, social or religious affiliation. Atticus knows that the world around is so cruel and unjust that realization of this fact can ruin innocent hearts of his children. That’s why he tries to teach them to admire good qualities in people and to understand and forgive bad ones. In Chapter 3 we read such words that Atticus tells Scout, “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”. In such simple words he managed to pass a great moral lesson to his daughter. And Scout tries to follow her father’s advice with more or less …show more content…
In Chapter 10 we find the following words, “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy . . . but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” Mockingbirds are innocent and harmless people destroyed by the evils of the world. Throughout the novel we can identify many characters as mockingbirds (Jem, Tom Robinson, Dill, Boo Radley, and Mr. Raymond). But Tom Robinson is the most prominent example of innocence destroyed by the people’s most terrible and disgusting vices: racial prejudices, ignorance, arrogance and cruelty. Tom was shot during his attempt to escape from the prison. He was a crippled man, he has no rights, no freedoms, and he left his widowed wife without any means of subsistence… But nobody cared except for Atticus Finch and his children who sympathized with Tom very much.
Despite the gloominess of the plot the end of the story is not without hope. Thanks to Atticus Finch’s wisdom and generosity his children learnt to understand and to forgive other people, who very often do bad things without realizing the disruptiveness of their actions. We can be sure that whatever evil Scout and Jem encounter in their lives they will not lose their faith in good and justice or become cynical, but on the contrary this faith will become stronger and these children will be able to choose right between good and