Rite Of Passage In To Kill A Mockingbird

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In a small town, the lives of three children are altered due to a series of events occurring around them. They are exposed to the horrors of the world when a black man is accused of raping a white woman. The father of two of the children previously mentioned is the one representing the accused and he goes through trials and tribulations. The resulting impact of this trial is that one child, in particular, loses his innocence and goes through what is called, the rite of passage. The aforementioned scenario is applicable to the film, To Kill a Mockingbird. Based on Harper Lee’s novel, it was screen written by Horton Foote and directed by Robert Mulligan. Set in 1932 in the town of Maycomb, Alabama, Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) and his two children, Jean “Scout” Louise (Mary Badham) and Jem (Phillip Alford), have their flipped upside down when Atticus, a lawyer, represents Tom Robinson, a black man, accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a white woman. From a scary night in front of a jailhouse to a trial of injustice, the children are forced to mature and come face to face with the harsh reality of the world. The day before the trial, Tom is brought back to Maycomb and is placed in a jailhouse. That same night, Atticus is visited by Sherriff Tate who expresses his concern of bringing Tom back because he fears that the men who oppose of the trial, might try to do something to Tom. Atticus later then asks Calpurnia to watch over the kids, but curiosity gets the better of them, so they …show more content…

Seeing as there is no more space on the first floor of the courthouse, Jem asks Reverend Sykes if he, Scout, and Dill can sit with him on the balcony. The significant thing about this interaction is that the people who sit on the balcony of the courthouse are all black, but the kids don’t really care. They don’t see race, they just see other people and it shows that Atticus has been teaching Jem and Scout