Examples Of Snap Judgement In To Kill A Mockingbird

Snap Judgement in Literature

It is easy for a person to judge someone by their appearance or apparel, seeing past that takes getting to know someone a little more. Snap judgement is a thing that occurs on a day to day basis, when people place each other under stereotypes or categories for appearing a certain way. In the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee several characters are subjected to snap judgement. Boo Radley is seen as shady when he is merely shy, and Atticus Finch is seen as being an average father when he is an exciting character. Similarly, in a poem titled My Identity by Yisel Chong, the author describes his own experiences with a false identity. He explains how the people around him see him as someone he is not, and how

It's very easy for people to make snap judgements about him due to the fact that he is a generally shady person. In actuality, he is just shy and rather timid, and can become protective or kind when it's most needed. At one point in the novel the main character, Scout Finch, is attacked by a man named Bob Ewell. For the sake of his neighbor’s life Boo chose to intervene and ends up saving Scout from what could have been her death. Although his assistance goes unknown to the people of Maycomb, he makes it very clear to Scout that he cared enough to help her, “His lips parted into a timid smile, and our neighbor’s image blurred with my sudden tears. “Hey, Boo,” I said”(270). Boo gives Scout a comforting smile after helping her, proving that perhaps he isn’t the shady person most people thought him out to be. Although Scout is able to see through the judgements of Boo Radley fairly easily her father, Atticus, is another story. Unlike Boo, Atticus is highly respected and people often mistake him for being a regular old father. Even his son, Jem Finch, views him as being a normal and bland father. It is after a wild dog runs loose through Maycomb that Jem comes to realise how different his dad is from what he initially thought. When Atticus picks up a shotgun and kills the dog with one shot it baffles Jem. He could never look at his father the same way

In this poem, the author describes how in his lifetime, he is greeted with the expectation of being someone he is not. It troubles him how people could so easily make judgements so easily, without even getting to know who he truly is. He describes how even to his friends and family he is different from himself, “My true identity, Is hard to see. To my friends and family, I’m a different me”(3). He explains how his friends and even his family view him as being someone that isn’t himself, and how his true identity is hidden within himself. Near the last lines of the poem he goes into further detail, as if he were speaking to the reader, to not judge him by how he seems. But instead get to know him and who he actually is, “Now please, Look at me, Try to see the real me. I’m no-one but, my real identity”(21). He asks that people look harder, and try to see the real person within him. His true identity. This form of false judgement can occur easily, when someone looks at someone one was when they are another, as depicted by Yisel Chong in My