Kill a Mockingbird the Novel to Kill

¶ … Kill a Mockingbird The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by author Harper Lee tells the story of a southern American family living in a rural community during the Great Depression. Atticus Finch is the single, widowed father of Jeremy, nicknamed Jem, and Jean Louise, nicknamed Scout. Many people of the town of Maycomb, Alabama dislike the Finches because Atticus is educated, because of the way that Atticus is raising his children and also for his attitudes towards segregation and racial equality. Mr.

Finch tries very hard to teach his children right from wrong, to let them live and make some of their own mistakes, and to raise them as intelligent human beings who judge men by the quality of the character, not the color of their skin. Although Atticus Finch is not a perfect man, he is ultimately a good father and a very good man.

Most of the plot of the novel deals with Atticus's defense of an African-American man named Tom Robinson who is accused of the rape and brutal assault on a white woman, Mayella Ewell. Racism is rampant in Maycomb and almost all the adults have prejudicial views. Racism is called "Maycomb's usual disease" (Lee 98). In the south, Harper Lee makes it clear that there is no place for justice for a black man.

"Atticus has used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret court of men's hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed" (Lee 270). Although Tom is obviously innocent, he is convicted and ultimately dies. Atticus is very concerned with the case and with the larger issue of racial injustice which nearly leads to the death of his two children.

Atticus Finch tries to get his children to learn right from wrong by forcing them to make amends when they commit a wrong and encouraging them to do right even when it is difficult. Atticus says, "Before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience" (Lee 105). Even though everyone in the town is judging Atticus for defending Tom, he refuses to sacrifice his principles to make his life easier.

He tries to prevent Jem and Scout from hating others and encourages them to consider the perspective of someone who they disagree with. For example, he says to the kids: "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point-of-view…until you climb into his skin and walk around it" (Lee 35). When one of the children tramples a flower bed of an elderly, bigoted woman, Atticus makes Jem go and read to the woman every day until she eventually passes away.

The lesson that Jem and Scout are taught is that not only must they make restitution for the wrong that they do, but that even some of the most reprehensible people have some good in them. This is proven when the woman leaves Jem a white flower as a gift following her passing. The most important lesson in the novel is that people should be judged by their character and not by their race.

Atticus tries to instill in his children the idea that there are good people in the world and that there are also bad people. This is true of people no matter what their skin color happens to be.

"As you grow older you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it -- whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, of how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash" (Lee 200). He also instructs them that to do damage to an innocent creature, or an innocent person is the worst kind of sin a person can commit.

The metaphor of the mockingbird is used to explain this. Atticus says, "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird" (Lee 96). In this metaphor, Tom Robinson is the mockingbird.

During his entire life, Tom has never harmed a soul and yet he is sentenced to an untimely death because he happened to be in the wrong place in the wrong time. Since Mayella was interested in Tom, which the text indicates that she was, her father beat her which was then attributed to poor Tom. He teaches his children about real strength and that courage isn't about having a weapon, but about doing what is right.

In the end, those that are brave will be rewarded and those that are not will discover that they cannot always win. Atticus says, "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do" (Lee 118).

At the end of the novel, Jem and Scout are attacked by Mayella's father Bob Ewell while they are walking home from the school Halloween pageant. The sheriff decides that Mr. Ewell officially fell on his knife. Atticus agrees to this version of events, although both men are sure that either Jem or their neighbor Boo Radley were likely responsible for the death. Jem is very injured from the attack and has a broken arm. The lesson that Atticus.