To Kill A Mockingbird Coming Of Age Quotes

In the timeless classic, To Kill A Mockingbird, a young girl, Scout, and her older brother, Jem, learn the true meaning of courage through a series of events that happen in their tired old town, Maycomb, Alabama. In Chapter 10, Harper Lee uses the killing of a mad dog to symbolize how Jem and Scouts ideas of courage change throughout their coming of age. In Chapter 10, Scout talks about how Atticus wouldn’t teach her and Jem how to shoot when they got their air rifles. Scout says that they had to turn to their Uncle Jack who, “...instructed [them] in the rudiments thereof, he said Atticus wasn’t interested in guns.” Throughout the novel, you can tell why Atticus isn’t interested in guns and violence. In multiple situations, he demonstrates that he would much rather talk things out to find a solution than to solve a problem with violence.

The town’s sheriff, Heck Tate, is called to kill the dog. Even the town’s sheriff asked Atticus, who the town would describe as “...civilized in his heart,” to shoot the mad dog. Atticus is very clear that he doesn’t want to do it when he says, “don’t waste time, Heck,” after Mr. Tate hands him the rifle. The main reason that Atticus was so hesitant about killing the dog was that he didn’t want Jem and Scout to believe, “...that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.” In many ways, the mad dog in this chapter symbolizes racism in the community. Atticus does not want Heck Tate to waste his time trying to get him ‘kill’ racism, when he knows that, in the town of Maycomb, it would never