Stereotypes In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird has a wide variety of characters. However, it’s diverse cast often holds not so diverse personalities -- many of them bear conventional dispositions with little development. The stagnant personalities of many of the characters creates a large supporting cast. However, that doesn’t detract from the overall themes of the novel. One of the first stereotypes in To Kill a Mockingbird involves Boo Radley. He is seen as a harmful person despite no one in town knowing anything concrete about him. This is exemplified whenever Jem speaks of him in chapter 1: "Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks... that’s why his hands were bloodstained—if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off. There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time." [Lee, 16] Despite having never laid eyes on Boo, he sees him as a fearsome

However, her role is quite unique. She does not progress as a character, but has a large influence on our protagonist, Scout Finch. Alexandra is fundamentally different from her two siblings, Atticus and Jack. While they are easygoing, much to the love of Scout, she is strict and overbearing. This leads to much dissension between Scout and Alexandra. This is brought to light in many anecdotal conversations from Alexandra, such as in Chapter 13, where Scout recalls being called “sluggish.” However, Alexandra and her hard personality are key to Scout’s development. In chapter 24, shortly after discovering the death of Tom Robinson, Scout finds herself not only admiring Alexandra, but taking after her. “After all, if Aunty could be a lady at a time like this, so could I.” [Lee, 318] In that moment, Alexandra’s stereotype did it’s work -- the strict, religious women had finally succeeded in controlling Scout, without Scout’s