To Kill A Mockingbird is a very inspirational novel. It’s told by a young girl named Scout, from a small town of Maycomb and the experiences she has with her family and the other citizens in the community.This book has many true but sometimes heartbreaking moments which relates to the real world. A lot of adult-like situations come about in this novel that include both the children and adults of the town of Maycomb. There are many areas in the book where the characters are relatable. Which makes it easy for you to feel compassion for them.
There are a variety of detailed and well described moments that are important to know as the readers. The world around us can be very cruel and hateful, but that doesn’t mean we have to be the same way towards each other. This book teaches that people act out because they are either hurting or that they have hate towards people because they look different then each other. Everyone should treat others as they want to be treated. We are all equal and should know the fact that color is just a color. There has been many incidents where Scout and Jem (Scouts brother) had gone through rough patches that children their age being so young, shouldn’t necessarily go through. The children are exposed to horrible rumors, racism, and sexual assault.
Foremost, As we’ve seen in the book, the young characters Scout, Jem, and Dill (their friend) were genuinely curious when hearing the towns’ gossip about Boo Radley. The gossip they hear from the adults intrigues them which causes them to take it upon themselves to find out if the rumors are true. Some rumors they have heard include gossip that Boo Radley might be violent and is an all around,bad man. We discover in the book that Boo Radley is not a bad man and the rumors have no truth.We see the curiosity unfold when Dill says “I know what, let’s go for a walk” (Lee 68). Scout is hesitant to proceed with Dills plan, in which he responds “You don’t have to come along, Angel May.”(Lee 68).
This shows that Dill thinks Scout is a goody goody. Scout protests further her unwillingness to come along in which Jem replies “Scout, I’m tellin’ you for the last time,shut your trap or go home-I declare to the Lord you’re gettin’ more like a girl every day!”(Lee 68). Scout fears she is seeming like a child and joins them wanting to seem as grown up as the Jem and Dill act. In my opinion, Jem and Dill are wrong for pressuring Scout into something she is uncomfortable with and is clearly not ready for. She is a young girl but is being forced to learn more about the adults she lives around. While investigating if the rumors are true, the children run into trouble. A man named Nathan Radley(Boo’s brother) saw a shadow-like figure on his property and proceeded to shoot at the children with his gun. Which for these children must have been truly terrifying.
The children flee but in the process Jem gets his pants stuck on the fence but had to leave them behind for fear of his life.When the children get a safe distance away Jem wanted to go back to the Radley house to retrieve his pants.“That’s what I know… That’s why I’m goin’ after ‘em” Said Jem courageously (Lee 75). He seems very brave in my opinion, but also slightly foolish because he doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into.
Another subject the book touches on, is racism. Racism is a huge part of this novel. It happens in our every day to day lives. Scout has experienced racism the hard way by watching Atticus (Scouts father) stand up for Tom Robinson and walking in others’ shoes. Tom Robinson is a black man who was wrongly accused of raping a white girl. A lot of the white people in the community thought he was guilty of the crime because he is black and is below the whites and is considered garbage like to them. Not only do we see racism from whites to blacks, but we also see it from blacks to whites. In fact, looking back to chapter 12, a black lady named Lula who goes to Calpurnia’s (Atticus’s housekeeper) church is quite racist herself. “I wants to know why you bringin’ white chillun to nigger church.”(Lee 158), Lula vented. We can see that Lula is not fond with having white children in a church full of blacks. This is the main problem in the book.
White people think that they are entitled to do whatever they want and treat the black people like dirt. This is a vicious circle that goes around and around between the blacks and whites in the community. That is why Lula got so upset at the fact that Jem and Scout were at the church. This just shows that not everyone thinks that color is just a color and with all this racism going on, Jem and Scout were affected by it by feeling like they didn’t belong. In my opinion, it’s hard to see the kids be exposed to such hate in their community. They should be living more carefree lives.
Lastly, sexual assault is another topic that the kids were exposed to. The reason that Jem and Scout were exposed to such a mature subject was because Atticus had became Tom Robinson’s lawyer. He became his lawyer because he was the only one that would represent a black man. He was defending Tom for being accused of raping a white girl named Mayella Ewell. With their fathers involvement in the trial that took place, the children became fascinated and snuck into the courtroom. This might not have been the best thing for them to have done because I feel they are to young to hear such vulgar things.
During the trial, they heard the many adult details given while listening to the testimonies. Bob Ewell (Mayella’s father) said “-I seen that black nigger yonder ruttin’ on my Mayella!”(Lee 231). Hearing all of these testimonies caused Scout to have questions about what rape is. She looks for answers by first going to Calpurnia. Calpurnia decides she would rather not answer the question and then tells Scout to ask Atticus. She then continues on to change the subject “It’s somethin’ you’ll have to ask Mr.Finch about.” And also saying “He can explain it better than I can. You all hungry? The Reverend took a long time unwinding’ this morning, he’s not usually so tedious.” (Lee 165) This all makes me think Calpurnia is trying very hard to avoid discussion of the topic any further. Scout got the chance to ask Atticus what rape is. He gave Scout a brief response telling her that rape was carnal knowledge of a female by force and without consent.
Even though Atticus did not go into detail with his answer, I feel that Scout is to young to have a discussion about such grown up issues. Scout replies to Atticus “Well if that’s all it is why did Calpurnia dry me up when I asked her what it was?”(Lee 181). By Scouts response to what she had been told, you could conclude that Scout really doesn’t understand how serious that topic is. Being so young and trying to understand an adult issue can be confusing for a child. That is why in my opinion Calpurnia was so unwilling to answer Scouts question in the first place and sent her to ask Atticus instead.
In conclusion, To Kill A Mockingbird was a touching story with many ups and downs. Things that they thought were true were sometimes wrong. An example of this would be when everyone was wrong about Boo Radley and when they got to know him, they knew that he is just a nice person. As Scout had said, “An’ they chased him ‘n’ never could catch him’ cause they didn’t know what he looked like, an’ Atticus, when they finally saw him, why he hadn’t done any of those things… Atticus, he was real nice…” (Lee 376). Atticus had replied with “Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.”(Lee 376) There are many shifts with everyone’s emotions towards each other, but that is why everyone needs to understand that the color of a person doesn’t define them and mean that they are bad people.
We see the children of the story learn a lot from the experiences they have. Their exposure to harsh rumors, racism, and sexual assault taught them a lot about the world they live in. The real reality of the world is that it can be a cruel and evil place at times. You can either give up and hide from the world or you can stand up and fight for what you believe in. Even though it might appear, these lessons were learned at much to young of ages. The children in this story in my opinion, persevered. In the book you never know what ends up happening to the children as adults. My hopes for the children in this book would be that they learned valuable lessons, that they can carry forward with them into adulthood. The knowledge the children now have would hopefully make them become good trustworthy adults, who will try to make the world a better place with more love and tolerance instead of evil and hatred.
