The Development of Moral Education in 'to Kill a Mockingbird'

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The Development of Moral Education in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ In the award winning novel, ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee, Jem, a ten year old boy, and Scout, and six year old girl, are shown throughout their adolescence and the experiences that help them mature. Many themes in this novel, such as prejudice, good versus evil, and the importance of moral education, affect Jem and Scout as the two mature to become understanding young adults. Jem and Scout are shown going through a tremendous amount of growing up not only physically but also mentally, morally, and emotionally. The novel is set in the town of Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression when racism is an attitude many individuals believed in. A trail in which Atticus, Jem and Scout’s father, is set to be the defending lawyer of a black man brings the children to realize that people are not what they appear and how their society truly works. Through key quotes from the novel, Jem and Scout learn about courage, perspective and value that can be easily related to my own experiences and lessons learned. In the beginning of the novel Jem and Scout are young siblings looking to have fun during the summer. Their innocent games that they play reflect their immaturity and how young minds tend to speculate upon things they do not know much about. Throughout the novel Jem has a difficulty with understanding what courage is. Jem starts with thinking that courage is somehow associated with childish acts. As an example, Atticus tells Jem to leave Boo Radley and their house alone, but one night Jem ignores his father’s rule and runs to the Radley’s house and touches the front door. Jem sees this as an act of courage, of first disobeying his father and secondly braving the Radley house that is scary to the young minds of Jem, and their friend Dill. Further along in the novel, the incident with the mad
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