Saturday, September 7, 2019
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Essay Example for Free
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Essay In To Kill a Mockingbird,1 Harper Lee tells of the terrible wrong of racism in an Alabama town. To avoid resort to an off-putting dogmatic or preaching style, she uses as her narrator Scout. Turning six at the novel’s beginning, Jean Louise â€Å"Scout†Finch is a precocious tomboy (81), intelligent (17), decent, and brave, and yet innocent of the complex, sometimes dangerous adult world. (19-22) She must try to understand why her father, a respected attorney, makes himself a â€Å"nigger-lover†by defending a black man accused of raping a white woman (74-75, 85-86, 87); why, a pacifist, he is called on to shoot a mad dog. (92-97) Jem, older and more knowing, is a vehicle to help Scout grow up. (58)            Atticus is â€Å"civilized in his heart.†(98) Scout gradually comes to understand the courage and decency that entails, and the costs sometimes involved. Atticus acknowledges the racist code of his community; he cannot change it. But he looks beyond labels to see people for what they are. (75) Calpurnia is as much a mother to his children as she is his servant. (6, 24-25) Above all, Atticus has principles: the presumption of innocence; the right to counsel; the duty to one’s conscience. (75-76) Holding to these, he tries to pass them on to his children. (91-93)            Arthur â€Å"Boo†Radley, the ghost-like figure who is both a terror and a delight to the children (8-13, ch. 5-6), is a â€Å"mockingbird.† He harms no one, and wants only to be left alone. Lee portrays beautifully the small ways in which the children reach out to him (58-63), how he responds to them (71-72), and in the end, the delicacy with which Scout protects his dignity allowing him to take her arm and appear the gentleman, even as she walks him home. (278)            Although it is often overlooked, there is beauty in the episode of Mrs. Dubose. Fighting addiction to morphine, irrational in her pain, struggling in silence, and ultimately prevailing against great difficulty, she earns high and deeply felt praise from Atticus: 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. Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew. (112) SOURCE: Lee, Harper, To Kill A Mockingbird. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1960.            1Because this is a review essay, in which To Kill a Mockingbird is the single source cited, in-text citations will give only the page numbers, rather than clutter the paper with unnecessary redundancies.
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