To Kill a Mockingbird Essay

Learning lessons is a very important part of growing up. Children learn new things every day of their life. Even adults learn something every once in a while. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the character Scout is very adventurous and loves to learn; she has many experiences that lead to her being taught many different things about life. On page 12 of Cliff Notes for this novel, John Sova writes “each experience is designed to give Scout a further understanding about certain things in life and about people. In one way or another, every episode leads to some type of learning experience for Scout”. Scout learns a lot of different things about her town’s views, the people who she’s heard about but never really knew, and how to treat others the proper way. Scout learns a lot about her town and how everybody feels about different issues. Race is a major factor of being discriminated. However, how much money your family has is big in being discriminated. Scout attempts to tell their new school teacher, Miss Caroline, about how Walter Cunningham won’t borrow money because “The Cunninghams never took anything they can’t pay back- no church baskets and no scrip stamps. They never took anything off of anybody, they get along on what they have. They don’t have much, but they get along on it” (22). Scout and Jem ended up bringing Walter home with them for lunch that day and she realized that Walter was a complex individual with his own burdens and dreams. Another example of people being discriminated would be Dolphus Raymond, a white man who is married to a colored woman and lives with the colored folk. He and his wife have lots of mixed children. Jem explains to Scout that the mixed children are real sad because “they don’t belong anywhere. Colored folks won’t have ‘em cause they’re half white; white folks won’t have ‘em cause they’re colored, so they’re just in-betweens, don’t belong anywhere” (184). Scout realizes then that her town judges on skin