Narrators bring a unique perspective to a story, giving the reader a chance to view the world through someone else’s eyes. In A Lesson Before Dying and To Kill A Mockingbird, narrators Scout and Grant share their stories of racism the way they personally experience it. Although Scout and Grant are both sharing their experiences with racism, these narrators come from such different backgrounds that their stories are nothing alike. Scout, a young white girl, observes racism as an innocent bystander while Grant, an educated black man, reluctantly becomes a hometown hero. Throughout A Lesson Before Dying, Grant learns about judging of others when he is faced with the problem of helping Jefferson die like a man.
TKAM Text Response Essay There's a lot of ugly things in this world, son. I wish I could keep 'em all away from you. That's never possible." How do the events of to kill a mockingbird cause scout and Jem to set aside childish understandings and move towards maturity? Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird provides the audience with an insight into the naïve and childish understandings of two young children growing up amongst the cruelty and harshness of the people in the society of the 1930's.
He made Scout cry a lot, and didn’t like to include her in a few things. The Narrator of this book is Scout. She is the youngest Finch. She isn’t very mature in the beginning of the book, but she matures throughout. She is preserved as annoying and irritable.
This is seen in the line where he states that the children go about “messing up their hair and breaking their glasses”. This was the scene where Piggy’s glasses were broken in Lord of the Flies. Billy Collins also adds the imagery of the American dream when he mentions walking past white picket fences and flower beds. He tries to keep the children’s innocence and have them believe in this utopia, however he questions whether that is possible. Similar to “The History Teacher”, “A Barred Owl” is also about an adult, in this case a parent trying to keep her child’s innocence.
This shows Scout’s prejudicial character for feeling immediate fear for the blanket because it was specifically Boo who put it on her. We can further see that Scout really indulged in what she heard about Boo and how much the rumors blinded her. Lee connects the quote she used above with another quote from page 89 where Scout says, “Jem, I ain’t ever heard of a nigger snowman.” This quote characterizes Scout’s innocence and portrays the theme of racism. Being the intelligent person she is, but due to her young age, Scout unknowingly uses the offensive word ‘nigger’ because she is too young to understand what nigger really means and how it is racist. This quote portrays the theme of racism when Jem responds to Scout by saying, “He won’t be black long,” describing the snowman to be black on the inside, but white on the outside.
The Coexistence of Good and Evil When a person takes his or her first steps into the world, he or she will finally be able to get a taste of the good and the bad in life. In the story “To Kill a Mockingbird”, the author Harper Lee displays the theme through the perspective of an innocent young girl, Scout, as she begins to reveal more about the world she lives in. Coexistence of good and evil is revealed through a case of an accused African American, causing not only Scout but the rest of the characters to change their perspectives towards their community. Through the contrasting beliefs and actions of the characters, the coexistence of both good and evil is exposed. Exploring and understanding different characters decisions and beliefs truly helps reveal human morality.
To Kill a Mockingbird Symbolism In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses symbolism as a way to represent prejudice in Maycomb. The three symbols that are used to explore the prejudice theme are; a mockingbird, the fire and the snowman. This novel is a true story based on Harper Lee’s life when she was a 6-year-old child. The mockingbird symbol represents the injustice of Negroes, for they don’t harm anyone. It is sinful to shoot a mockingbird.
I was also made aware of the world when Atticus told his children that everyone has a story and “you never understands a person until you consider things from the person’s point of view”. The characters in the story seemed believable. I could relate to them because my uncle and I were pulled over by white cops during my short stay in the United States simply because we were people of color. I especially liked Atticus because He portrays decency and goodness while protecting his innocent children. The story has a good theme” to Kill a Mockingbird” because Jem, Tom Robinson Dill, Boo Radley, Mr. Raymond) can be identified as mockingbirds-innocents who have been injured or destroyed through contact with
“To Kill A Mockingbird“: Literary Analysis Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird portrays life through a young girl’s eyes as she grows up and begins to realize that everything is not black and white. During a time where blacks were basically thought of as dirt and little girls were expected to sit still and help out around help put around the house, it is evident that that the saying “it takes a village to raise a child” is being put top good use. The basic theme of the novel is civil rights. What happens to Tom Robinson is an injustice, and could only happen to a black man in the South during the 1930s. It could even be said that the predominantly white justice system killed Tom Robinson.
Also, Sammy’s parents keep nagged and complained but did not concern about why she had unsatisfactory results on academic aspect. Sammy becomes rebellious because the criticism of the parents, that had produced lots of conflicts in the family relationship. Therefore, there was a conversation problem between them, which make they not understand each other. Lack of self-understanding Sammy did not know her personal identity and what she likes. These were the symptoms that appeared in Erikson’s (1963) eight psychosocial stages, which describes the impact of social experience across the whole lifespan.