Harper Lee’s 1960 novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” conveys the importance of understanding individual difference through many aspects. Individual difference is the fact that every person is different from the other, that no one is the same and we all have our different views and opinions. This is portrayed through Miss Caroline’s unfriendliness towards Scout, the different views of the town, people growing up and changing, including Jem’s misjudgement of Mrs Dubose, and the misunderstanding of Boo Radley never leaving his home. Techniques such as metaphors, the use of a child narrator and imagery are frequently used throughout the novel. These are used to tell Scout’s childhood recollections and the differences within the town.
“To Kill a Mockingbird” is a novel that shows the differences of people throughout the town Maycomb County. A range of misconceptions are discovered, one including the thought that Boo Radley never leaves his home, and is described as over six feet tall and awfully ugly, a monster who strangles cats with his bare hands and then eats them, which is revealed early on in the novel by Scout and Jem. This led on to many fantasies, myths and rumours created and believed by the children of the town. They imagine Boo as a completely different person to what he actually is. Dill said:
"We're askin' him real politely to come out sometimes, and tell us what he does in there – we said we wouldn't hurt him and we'd buy him an ice cream." (Ch. 5)
Boo Radley becomes such a figure of fascination for the children that they have many attempts to get him out of his house. This obsession describes their strange longing for connection with him. We eventually find out Boo stands as a figure of innocence that befriends and protects the children in his own way. This scene shows the importance of understanding individual difference as every person in the town has their own portrayal of Boo, the children’s more juvenile and completely different from the adults.
Miss Caroline is new to town and is unaware of the social hierarchy. She is impolite to Scout and does not understand why Walter Cunningham does not take anything he cannot give back in return. Her character is a major factor of understanding individual difference. Scout is shunned by Miss Caroline because she is ahead of her classmates and has already been educated by her father and her maid Calpurnia. Miss Caroline is new to Maycomb, and she brings a new way of teaching with her. She is utterly unable to cope when she finds out Scout’s reading and writing exceed first grade standards:
"We don't write in the first grade, we print. You won't learn to write until you're in the third grade" (Ch. 2).
Her ‘must follow the rules’ meaningless attitude suggests that it would be a smarter move for Scout to adapt to the rules. Scout soon learns that stupid rules won’t change so you just have to make a show of following them to get by. We gain a better understanding of the Maycomb community and how it functions through this.
In “To Kill a Mockingbird” we meet Mrs Dubose, who is a sick and mad old neighbour who lives two houses down from the Finches. The children are scared of her, as she yells bad things towards the two innocent kids. Jem is unresponsive to it all at first, until it reached a certain point where he swipes at her Camellia bushes, destroying them. Jem’s judgement of Mrs Dubose:
“Jem and I hated her. If she was on the porch when we passed, we would be raked by her wrathful gaze, subjected to ruthless interrogation regarding our behavior, and given a melancholy prediction on what we would amount to when we grew up, which was always nothing”. (11.3)
This quote demonstrates the children’s fear and hate for her. Jem does not know about Mrs Dubose’s morphine addiction witch was the cause of this behaviour. She created terror in the kid’s lives, just through the power of her words. They did not understand at this time that Mrs Dubose was in fact nothing else than a morphine addict, and later on they realize the reason she died was because she could at last finally free herself from her addiction. When Atticus explained this, it was important for the children to understand Mrs Dubose individual difference.
In conclusion, the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” does demonstrate the importance of individual difference through these key aspects- The thought of Boo Radley being a monster, Miss Caroline’s misunderstandings regarding Scout, and Jem’s judgement of Mrs Dubose. Everyone is diverse and they all have their own different views and opinions.
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