Character Analysis: To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird Essay

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Grand Central, 1982. To Kill a Mockingbird was written by Harper Lee. It tells the story of a six year old girl named Jean Louise Finch, or Scout. Scout lives in Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression in the 1930s. In the story, Scout learns a lot about her town and the people who live in it. There are many instances of racism and that take place in To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee is the author of the fictional book To Kill a Mockingbird.

To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in the fictional setting of Maycomb County, Alabama. The town itself is very quiet and dreary. It is old-fashioned in many of its ways. Maycomb is “an old town, but it” is “a tired

She is six years old in the beginning of the book. She is a very tough tomboy and enjoys beating people up for fun. Scout is the narrator of To Kill a Mockingbird. Her brother, Jem, says she is “gettin’ more like a girl every day” (69). Scout is an extremely talented and intelligent girl. She is already able to read going into first grade. She is also very faithful in her belief that everyone is good on the inside. After telling her father she believes people are good, Atticus responds with “‘Most people are Scout, when you finally see them’” (376). Towards the end of the book, Scout is in third grade. Jem Finch is Scout’s brother. He is ten years old when the book begins. Jem He is a football fanatic and will do anything to be on his school’s team. Unfortunately for Jem, he is just too small to be on the team. He is “too slender and too young yet to do anything but carry the team water buckets” (324). Jem also wants to be a lawyer when he is older. Atticus Finch is Jem and Scout’s father. He is a lawyer. He is the lawyer that was in charge of defending Tom Robinson in the court case. Scout and Jem think that Atticus is a boring father because he will not play football with them, and he does things that are not normal for dads. The kids think Atticus is too old. Atticus was “much older than the parents of” Jem and Scout’s “school contemporaries”, and was nearing fifty towards the

His real name is Charles, but “‘folks call’” him “‘Dill’” (8). Dill is Jem and Scout’s friend. He comes to Maycomb in the summertime to live with his aunt, Miss Rachel. He is from Meridian, Mississippi. Dill is a very strange looking boy. He “wore blue linen shorts that buttoned to his shirt”, and “his hair was snow white and stuck to his head like duckfluff” (9). Tom Robinson is the black man who was accused of rape. He was said to beat and rape Mayella Ewell. Tom has “powerful shoulders” that “rippled under his thin shirt” (248). He appeared to be “oddly off balance” because “his left arm was fully twelve inches shorter than his right, and hung dead at his side. It ended in a small shriveled hand” and “was no use to him” (248). Tom lost his arm in an accident with a cotton