Atticus Finch Moral Development

In Harper Lee's novel To Kill A Mockingbird, Lee focuses on discrimination in the town of Maycomb, Alabama, which is very present during the 1930's in the South. One of the characters, Atticus Finch, is a white lawyer who is defending a black man, Tom Robinson , of charges of rape. While defending his client, Atticus is also responsible for teaching his two children, Scout and Jem, the importance of moral development.

Scout Finch is the ten year old daughter of Atticus Finch. Although she is the youngest in the family, Scout realizes at an early age the importance of right and wrong . One example of this is how when Bob Ewell tries to attack both Scout and her twelve year old brother Jem. Ewell was seeking revenge after Atticus embarrassed him at Tom Robinson's trial. The person that came to their rescue was Boo Radley, who the town of Maycomb believed was a bad person based on rumors of him as a teenager . When Boo rescued her and her brother, Scout realized that there is some good in everybody and not everyone can be judged. She learns this from her father but came to the conclusion on her own because of her moral

An example of Jem's moral development is when he, Scout and Dill go downtown, without permission. While downtown, they see Atticus at the prison cell with Tom Robinson. They also see a van pull up with men dressed in heavy clothing and approach Atticus , starting to yell at him. Jem runs to Atticus' defense, but Atticus tells his children and Dill to go back home because it is unsafe for them. At that moment, we see how Jem decides between right and wrong because he directly disobeys his fathers orders and stays by his side. Although it may seem that Jem made the wrong decision by disobeying his father, by him staying he prevented the other men from harming either Atticus or Tom