Examples Of Scout's Childhood In To Kill A Mockingbird

How Life Experiences Can Teach Enough To Last A Lifetime

Throughout the history of humans on the Earth, some people have always been the upper class, and they have generally looked down on, and discriminated against the lower classes, whether these classes be determined by family name, income, race, religion, or anything else. In the earliest days of the American South, blacks were kept as slaves, and after they were freed and slavery was outlawed in the United States they were still looked down on by almost all whites in the South, and were discriminated against, and treated as anything but equals for decades more after slavery was abolished. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, a young girl recounts her childhood in the deep…show more content…
At Scout’s first day of school, the new teacher lends Walter Cunningham, a child from an exceptionally poor family, a quarter to buy lunch since he had brought none. Scout tried to tell her teacher that she wouldn’t be paid back, and that Walter would never bring a lunch because his family is so poor. After the teacher punished Scout for doing so, she found Walter in the schoolyard and fought him. Scout’s brother, Jem, broke the fight up, and invited Walter to dinner in order to make up for Scout’s harsh treatment. At dinner, Walter drowned his meal in syrup, covering everything, and prompting Scout to comment about him ‘drowning his dinner’ and making Walter feel bad about himself again. "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (30). This is what Scout’s father, Atticus, later tells her explaining the concept of empathy to her, and attempting to phrase it in a way that she can understand the point he is trying to convey to her. This lesson on empathy is something Atticus uses when working in the Maycomb court, and in her personal life, to relate to his children, and explain happenings in the town to both himself and his kids. Scout uses empathy throughout the rest of the novel when thinking about the case…show more content…
At christmas, Atticus gives Jem and Scout air rifles as gifts. He tells the two that he would prefer they shoot at cans, but wagers that they may be tempted to shoot at living things. He tells them if they must hunt birds, they can shoot all the blue jays they want to, but to never kill a mockingbird. "Remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." Scout realized it was the only time she had ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something. When she asked Miss Maudie about it, she learned "Your father's right, Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy . . . but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird" (90). Atticus tells his children this, and the lesson is then reinforced by a neighbor, Miss Maudie, telling the two children that their father was right in his teaching. Atticus effectively told his children not to harm the innocent, who do harm to nothing or noone. Arthur Radley is later called a mockingbird by Scout, after she realizes that bringing him to court for saving her and her brother by stabbing Bob Ewell would be similar to shooting a mockingbird. Taking this man who has only ever done good for the two children, and dragging him out of his comfort zone to be tried for a crime that did away with one of the town’s worst, and protected some of the town’s