Commentary on To Kill a Mockingbird Essay

LITERATURE ESSAY

400-450 WORDS

FINAL

Atticus Finch is the father of Jeremy and Jean Louise (Scout) Finch, he is lawyer and an extremely morally upright, noble man who strives to deal with everyone fairly. Atticus character is, without a doubt, in a league of its own. He doesnt follow the crowd and is a perfect example to his children.

Atticus is sometimes overly optimistic, but his unshakable hope in mankind and self created role as the towns do-gooder sustain him. Atticus is also a strong believer in justice and prejudice, and it is only when he agrees to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who stands falsely accused of raping Mayella Ewell, that Atticus stuns the small community of Maycomb.

Atticus character is clearly shown when he agrees to defend Tom Robinson, because even though he knows that he would probably loose the case, he still agrees to take it on because he wants to show the white community of Maycomb its own moral degeneracy.

This is only one example Atticus sets to his fellow white people. It is his believe in fairness and equality that sets him apart from the rest. A successful lawyer and model father is Atticus, rarely stern with his children, but its the day he lectures Scout about making fun of the Radleys and telling her to stop the nonsense, which creates an unspoken tension between father and child, as Scout is not quite convinced of the Radleys humanityor better yet, sanity.

This scene is just another example of Atticus character and belief in prejudice, as he teaches Scout to never resort to the breaking down, or making fun of people, which is a common sin amongst the average human being.

There is no doubt that Atticus believes in his own way of doing something, he aswell could never fall for peer pressure, its simply his character, no matter how much he would be critised or made fun of, he will always fall back on morals and right doing. There is a day when Scout has it all on her plate, her teacher shouts at her for being able to read and she simply cant understand why, she doesnt feel like ever going back to school and bit by bit she starts explaining this to Atticus, who once again teaches her a valuable lesson of judgment and acceptance of folks, to better get along with and understand them. He says ; you never really understand a person until you consider things from their point of view, until you actually climb into their skin and walk around in it.

These teachings and lessons by Atticus help not only the children to be sculpted into model beings, but the people of Maycomb aswell. Valuable lessons are taught and people should always lead by example, just as Atticus does.

448 WORDS