...In To Kill a Mockingbird, it reads “Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit'em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird”(Lee,119). In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch is called to defend Tom Robinson in a case he knows he can’t win. Although everyone believes the suspect definitely committed the crime Atticus knows that is not true. In the story, Atticus defends Mr. Robinson and believes that he is innocent. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee depicts Atticus Finch as an insightful character, a respectful character, and a moral character to reveal a model of a simple man. In my opinion, Harper Lee depicts Atticus Finch as an insightful character to reveal a model of a simple man. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus says “Courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what” (Lee,149). Through Atticus’s perspective, it is learned that he figured out what Mr. Dubose was doing....
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...Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel centered around a few years in Jean Louise “Scout” Finch’s childhood, featuring her experiences and the lessons that she learns growing up in the 1930s. Scout and her brother, Jeremy “Jem” Finch, mature in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, in a one-parent home. Their father and aunt, Atticus and Alexandra, raise them with help from Calpurnia, their African American maid. Harper Lee weaves several different themes throughout the novel, but some are more prominent than others. Lee develops the main themes of growth, protection of innocence, and perception throughout To Kill a Mockingbird, disguised in the form of lessons learned during the narrator’s childhood. Harper Lee reveals her theme of growth...
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...Atticus Finch is one of the most steadfastly honest and moral characters in “To Kill a Mockingbird“ by Harper Lee and his character remains, for the most part, unchanged throughout “To Kill a Mockingbird”. As any character analysis of Atticus Finch should note in terms of the plot of “To Kill a Mockingbird” he begins as an upstanding citizen who is respected and admired by his peers and even though he loses some ground during the trial, by the end of To Kill a Mockingbird he is still looked up to, both by his children and the community as whole—with all class levels included. As a lawyer in To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch represents everything that someone working in the justice system should. He is fair, does not hold grudges, and looks at every situation from a multitude of angles. As Miss Maude quite correctly puts it in one of the important quotes from “To Kill a Mockingbird”by Harper Lee, “Atticus Finch is the same in his house as he is on the public streets” (87) and this could also be said of how he behaves in the courtroom. He is a skilled lawyer and without making outright accusations in a harsh tone he effectively points out that Bob Ewell is lying. Even more importantly, the subject of this character analysis, Atticus Finch, is able to gracefully point out to the jury that there although there probably are a few black men who are capable of crimes, “this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men” (208). His understanding of...
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...Harper Lee created one of the most beloved characters in American literature when she created Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus always treats everyone the same no matter who they are or what they do. Atticus always has a good attitude and very rarely raises his voice or shows extremities in his emotions. Atticus also is very straightforward, honest and doesn’t beat around the bush. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee shows Atticus as fair, consistent, and honest to illustrate equality. Throughout the novel Atticus is portrayed as a very fair man. “I asked Atticus if Mr. Cunningham would ever pay us. ‘Not in money,’ Atticus said, ‘but before the year’s out I’ll have been paid. You watch” (Lee 23). This quote from the book shows...
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...for their children during the course of their lifetime. The way a mother and father decide to raise their children molds the person that they will be grow to be. The novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee exhibits the parenting philosophy that Atticus Finch implemented upon Jem and Scout, his son and daughter. Atticus was a hardworking man who did whatever he could for his family. He made sure to always be a role model for his children and shaped them into people that they could be proud of. Atticus Finch was a fantastic father to his children. Firstly, Atticus treated his children as humans and not as robots that he could control...
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...“To kill a mockingbird” by Harper Lee is based on the central idea that is a sin to kill a mockingbird. Atticus tells Scout this when he gives them guns. After, Atticus tells her it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird. She goes to ask Miss Maudie why it’s a sin. Miss Maudie explains it’s a sin because they don’t do anything but sing their hearts out focus. This refers to the thesis statement because it deals with Miss Maudie, Atticus Finch, and Tom Robinson. Miss Maudie is true friend and she has good moral as Atticus. Miss Maudie implies “Indoors, when Miss Maudie wanted to say something she settled her fingers on her knees and settled her bridgework. Then she did and waited. ‘I simply wanted to tell you that there are some men in...
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...the novel To Kill a Mockingbird there are various key themes that Harper Lee includes, ranging from the importance of family all the way to innocence. One of the most recurring themes in the book is moral development.In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee conveys the theme that self control reveals a person’s higher moral development when Scout refuses to fight the boy that is bullying her, when Atticus compliments the woman that was screaming insults at his children, and when Atticus walks away after Robert Ewell spit in his face. One scene in To Kill A Mockingbird where Harper Lee displays the integrity needed to execute self control is when Scout is being antagonized by a boy at her school about how her father is defending Tom Robinson, and when asked to fight, she decides, instead, to walk away. She was tempted to attain revenge, but then she, “drew a bead on him, remembered what Atticus had said, then dropped [her] fists and walked away” (Lee 102). She was mentally strong, and instead of listening to the angry voices inside of her, she followed the advice of her elders. It was a major milestone for her, as it was, “...first time [she] had ever walked away from a fight” (Lee 102)....
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...Throughout Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’, family is used to set extreme examples of how families react during times of incredible hardship. In doing this, Harper Lee solidifies the important role that family has to play in the story of ‘To Kill A Mockingbird.’ By making each family represent a quality, whether it be positive or negative, Harper Lee creates a world with feels real to the reader, and hammers home all the points that she is trying to make. Specifically, Lee uses the Finch family, the Ewelle Family, and the Black Community, to emphasize the importance of family within the novel. In ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ the Finch family is used as a pillar for how to be an exemplary American in the town of Maycomb. The Finch family represents...
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...Growing up is a major struggle for many as it is a time where one loses their innocence and starts to question their beliefs, values, and morals. Growing up is when one starts to face the harsh realities of society and starts to build an understanding of right versus wrong. In the three years covered by To Kill A Mockingbird Scout, Dill, and Jem grow from being naive, immature, and impulsive to being mature and understanding. In To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the destruction of innocence is used to depict the characters’ growth and development as well as their new understanding of the injustice in society surrounding race. The destruction of innocence is a major theme which illustrates growth and development within the characters of...
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...qualifications. As Atticus said to his daughter Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird “It is a sin to kill a mockingbird” (Lee). Transition: Connect your grabber to your next sentence. Mockingbirds represent those who are innocent in the novel. Background info: Discuss any pertinent information about the author or story details necessary for the reader’s comprehension The book is about a man who is on trial for rape. That man, Tom Robinson was black and the town was ruled under very unfair social standards. His lawyer Atticus Finch knew he was not guilty. So he was trying to protect his children from Maycomb's corrupt town by...
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...only through continuous effort and struggle” -Napoleon Throughout Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, the characters face many struggles. The story takes place in a small Alabama town called Maycomb in the 1930’s, where everybody knows everybody. This can be a problem, because word spreads like wildfire in the town. Word spreads about Scout and Jem’s father, Atticus, and how he’s defending a black in a court case. The story follows this case and how it affects the children, and in the end, leaves readers shocked. Through the concept of strength, Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, teaches readers to continue going no matter what happens. Harper Lee first teaches strength to readers by showing them it...
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...his skin and walk around in it." (Lee 30) In this quote, Atticus Finch explains to Scout Finch how everyone has a different opinion on subjects, and that the only way to understand a person’s opinion is to see the world from his or her perspective. The illustrious Harper Lee challenged racial stereotypes and explored the rough side of life through the eyes of young Scout Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird. Scout, supported by her older brother Jem and father, Atticus, matured from a bigmouthed, boisterous little girl to a compassionate and caring person. Along the way, she pushed the limits of her curiosity with Boo Radley and learned...
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...the personification in To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom is helpful, friendly, courteous and kind to young and old and that also parallels the way most mockingbirds are friendly, courteous and kind. Tom Robinson helps out everyone from working for Link Deas to helping out Mayella Ewell.. Harper Lee writes “I just want the whole lot of you to know one thing right now. That boy’s worked for me eight years and I ain’t had a speck aco’trouble outa him. Not a speck.” This quote is yelled out by Link Deas during the court trial because he cares for Tom and Link knows that Tom is innocent. The importance of this quote is that it shows that he is a good person and the only people who don’t believe it are the most of the white community in Maycomb...
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...Symbolism in To Kill a Mockingbird Whether it is in literature or even shown in pictures, when people use things to represent something with a deeper meaning, it is called symbolism. By doing this, the reader is able to obtain a better and deeper sense of what a writer is trying to convey. In the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, different symbols are used that are reflective throughout the book relating to equality either directly or indirectly. Often, the symbols that she uses are tied to the ultimate theme of the book, which is being able to understand someone from his or her point of view. The most apparent reoccurring theme is equality that is symbolized through the people, the birds, and even the inanimate objects that...
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...Mockingbird‘s Faded Childhood Innocence Irish poet William Butler Yeats once said, “The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.” There is no truer an example in literature than in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. In the novel the author uses the perspective of the novel’s storyteller, Miss Jean Louise Finch, more commonly known as Scout, and her brother Jeremy, nicknamed Jem, to highlight the blind innocence that comes as a byproduct of childhood. It is this innocence that also disappears from the children’s perspective in the novel. At least at first the two, blinded by their innocence, are unaware of the more mature and even sometimes ominous events and actions that eventually occur in the novel’s unveiling plot. It is because of their unwearied characters that Lee is able to best show how the events that occur in the lives of young characters causes blind innocence to disappear over time. Throughout the novel, there is a constant turn of events that ultimately leaves the children disillusioned with all their preconceived notions of all that is morally just and good. As Yeats said, time indeed proves to be the enemy for the children’s innocence, and by the novel’s end their worldly perspective is irreversibly changed. In the opening of the novel, Jean Louise Finch is revealed to be a grown woman looking back on her youth. The focal point of the narrative in particular is an innocent period from her childhood when she is six years old, just...
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