“The court appointed Atticus to defend him. Atticus aimed to defend him. That’s what they didn’t like about it. It was confusing.”
From an outward perspective, the above statement seems illogical, as one would assume a lawyer would always defend their client to the best of their ability. In her immaturity, Scout does not understand why the people of Maycomb are disgusted with Atticus’s actions. She sees that her father is simply doing his job, as he was assigned to defend Tom Robinson. She also cannot understand why Atticus did not inform her that he had been assigned the case earlier, as she ‘[could] have used it many times in defending [their family].’ Atticus’s reason for this was that he never saw it as an option to only defend his client half-heartedly, but rather he intended to defend all his clients equally, rather than base his effort in the case on his, or the town’s, level of bias towards the person. This view is further emphasised when Atticus comments that he believes ‘real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway.’ This relates to the disgust shown by Maycomb County to Atticus’s defence of Tom Robinson. They believe the correct action, one which any other Maycomb lawyer would take, would be to simply represent him, rather than ‘aim to defend him.’ Atticus chose to defend Tom Robinson to the best of his ability, and accepted the challenge of dealing with his town’s negative attitude towards both himself and his family.
The problems of racism is one of the main focuses of this novel. Another idea that is not as focused upon is that changes to lifestyle generally take a long time. During the time of the novel, the black people are seen by most as less than human. Most white people discriminate and exploit them so that white people’s lives are easier. One of the reasons Atticus was given the Tom Robinson case was because he was one of the only lawyers that would take the case seriously. He tried to make the citizens of Maycomb think Tom Robinson as a person, not just a piece of dirt. Because of his actions, the jury takes a long time to make a decision on the fate of Tom Robinson, and Miss Maudie says that “we’re making a step – it’s just a baby step, but it’s a step”, referring to the fact that people are actually thinking about the consequences of their actions. However, it takes a lot of time before all people are seen as equal.
Another slow change during the book is Scout perception of Boo. At the beginning of the book, she thinks him as a “malevolent phantom”, and throughout the book thinks him as a scary, mysterious figure. Only at the end of the novel, which is a few years after the beginning of the story, does Scout seem him as a kind figure and as an actual person.
Nowadays, this idea that changes are generally slow still apply. A modern day example is how most of the world now believe that Global Warming needs to be stopped, but those who are in the position to make and change laws take a lot of time to make the laws and convince people to support them
(and I’m sure that people opposing them make them take a long time to process, but still…)
People like the easy life. People aren’t that willing to agree to change their lifestyle to something more difficult to live. People will often still take actions that were allowed before (a change) and disregard and disobey any change. Therefore changes are usually slow.
Lee suggests that the need to learn about true nature of courage is vital to complete the journey from childhood to adulthood because this is how people learn to cope with life’s challenges. Courage is the key theme all throughout part one of this book. It is described to us through Atticus defending Tom Robinson in court, Mrs Dubose giving up her morphine addiction, Miss Maudie’s house burning down and Dill running away from his parents to find happiness. All of these are examples of true courage. This is Mrs Duboses courage journey in more detail : Lee suggests that it takes true courage to give up an addiction. This is shown through the eyes of Mrs Dubose when she gives up her morphine addiction and ends up dying because of it. “She took it as a pain-killer for years. The doctor put her on it. She’d have spent the rest of her life on it and died without so much agony, but she was too contrary -”. This illustrates how much courage Mrs Dubose has to able quit something so addictive.
‘I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mocking bird.’
The message that Harper Lee is trying to get across through this quote (page 99, chapter 10) is that when Atticus says ‘,but remember it’s a sin to kill a mocking bird.’ she is actually really referring to Tom Robinson as being the mockingbird. What Harper Lee is meaning here is that you are killing an innocent man that has done nothing to you and this is exactly the same as killing a mocking bird. Tom Robinson is an innocent man that is being sent to jail for doing something that only the public think he did because he is a black man. Everything he did was an act of kindness. He was always a gentle and kind man. So Harper Lee has explained this to us but just by using a mockingbird as a replacement of him instead. ‘Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat peoples gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why its a sin to kill a mockingbird.’
Harper Lee has cleverly written To Kill a Mockingbird in first person. I believe her purpose in doing this was so we (the reader) go on a journey with Scout, exactly as she would have felt when she was there. The first person subjectiveness gives the reader a completely different perspective on what is happening unlike if it was written in third person, or even from another character’s perspective. Scout is young and has a great deal of naivety which is expressed through her responses to the surroundings and the things that happen. This is evident after Scout and Jem find out about their dad defending Tom Robinson. Jem tells scout that if Atticus “was proud of it, he’da told us,” and Scout replies saying “Maybe it just slipped his mind.” It shows Scout’s lack of understanding and that she isn’t old enough to realise the consequences of the upcoming events. Something Jem himself outlines by responding with “Naw, Scout, it’s something you wouldn’t understand.” It also shows the way in which Jem is maturing and learning about what is happening with his dad and why his dad is defending Tom Robinson even though they are being scrutinised for it.
In the novel the complications only start to come in through chapter 9 and onwards, where they begin to talk about Atticus defending a Negro in court. In this scene we see that Scout is having a hard time at school because she is hearing so much about her father that she does not know what to believe. “He had announced in the school yard the day before that Scout Finch’s daddy defended Niggers” (Page 82 5 lines from the bottom). All this talk at school is causing chaos between Scout and Cecil Jacobs. Also in this scene we see the childish play of the adults in Maycomb. We see this from what their children are saying at school, from the way that they talk about Negro. That their children are talking what they say about Negros and telling younger kids at school. This helps to convey the fact that the people of Maycomb do not treat niggers the way they should, they don’t treat them like humans, but as something from another planet. Throughout this scene Scout still seems really childish from the way she talk to her father “Well if you don’t want me to grow up talkin’ that way, why do you send me to school?”. In this we can see the childishness in her, because she knows why she gets sent to school and she knows that she has to go to school.
Another key theme in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” is it fear of the unknown. This then leads to a chain reaction. An example of this in the book is the stories of Boo Radley. Miss Stephanie Crawford’s fear of not knowing what was happening behind closed doors; lead her to make up false stories, which in effect lead to her prejudice and fear being spread. This would have made Arthur Radley feel more isolated, lonely and alienated, all because of one person’s fear and malicious lies. But why did it all start? Because she doesn’t know and this makes her afraid. Another example is Miss Maudie Atkinson and her flowers. The foot washing Baptists told Miss Maudie, “…and told me that me and my flowers were going to hell.”(pg 49). This fear of the unknown is the cause of much prejudice in Maycomb as well as still in today’s society. It is why we have racism, bullying, violence, rumours and sadness. We are all DIFFERENT, and this is one thing we all need to learn and accept. Also we all need to learn to be empathetic of each other, which will lead to unity and understanding as well as peace.
The novel of to kill a mocking bird written by Harper Lee is based on the life and experiences of her own life. This book clearly means a lot to her as it is the only novel she has published she has put a lot into it. I feel as though it is a way of her expressing her feelings and overview of her life and then added a few more things and interesting aspects. The things that make it so special are that she has wrote it as a rare piece of work which turned into an award winning novel selling over 30,000,000 novels. The main theme of the novel is racism as is everything about it has been surrounded by the aspect of racism. The way that Atticus, the father of the two children handles the situation as it becomes a very controversial subject in their household. I found it very noble of him that he respects every single person in their neighbourhood and community including people of colour. As well as the way he sets such a good example to his children. An example of this is where scout comes home from school asking ‘Do you defend niggers, Atticus?’ referring to Atticus’ case on Tom Robinson. Atticus replies to her saying that she shall not call them niggers and to call them less ‘common’ and fair. This shows a great deal of Atticus’ leadership and responsibility.
To Kill a Mockingbird is based around the idea of prejudice. Prejudice is an issue that has affected the world throughout time and stems from a lack of understanding and a refusal to accept people for who they are. Prejudice comes in many forms from the smallest school yard insult to Hitler’s holocaust in World War 2. Atticus’ support of Tom Robinson throughout the book is misunderstood by the people of Maycomb. Jem and Scout suffered a great deal because of it but they were willing to fight because they knew their father was doing the right thing and believed in giving Tom the Justice he deserved. The school children called them “nigga-lovers” an extremely derogatory term which portrays the ignorance of those children and further their parents. Children don’t come up with these things on their own, they merely repeat what they hear at home. So it is a great emphasis on the ignorance of the adults in Maycomb, and that this idea of black vs. White is so ingrained into their lives. Standing up for what you believe is right can be much tougher than simply stating an opinion. It takes courage, and in a society where blacks were not accepted or equals with white, to stand up and support a man who has been accused of rape shows courage and integrity. I believe that had I been in the same situation as Atticus I may not have had the same courage to go against what was the ideology of that time.
I really enjoyed reading this novel, even though the story is slow and boring, but I find it really interesting at the same time as Harper Lee has described the kind of environment she had to live in. I’m also really glad that nowadays there is not as much racism as there was in her time, however, the people who are racists towards others are lowlifes and ‘trash’ who have absolutely no respect for others. Also, the saying ‘treat other’s how you want to be treated’ is a thing that everybody around the world should do. Hence, why would people want to be racist against others? There are no benefits as to doing so and just because someone has a different skin colour or is part of another race, it doesn’t mean that someone has the right to be racist towards them and that they are different. So for example, if I said that someone with brown hair dyed their hair black, would that make them an Asian because they have the same basic hair colour?
