To Kill A Mockingbird Ignorance Quotes

U3EA2 The“Queen of the Tomboys” grew up during the Jim Crow era; seeing justice unsatisfied in the Scottsboro trial at the tender age of five. Her father is a lawyer who was given a case to defend two African Americans in court, but he was unsuccessful due to racial norms in their home of Monroeville, Alabama. Many years Years later she was known by her peers as an individualist at the University of Alabama. While staying there she started by studying law but; first studying law and then then switched ing majors to become the aspiring writer known as Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird (TKM). In Chapter 9 of said novel, Lee’s young character Scout confronts a classmate who had “announced in

The next day Scout confronts her classmate yet again and although they blatantly insult her father, Scout walks away from a fight for the first time in her life while the

When Scout fights Cecil, she reacts violently to his ignorant comment and with the imagery of her clenched fists, a reader sees the anger that she feels. “My fists were clenched and I was ready to let fly.”(pg 74). Her anger fuels a sudden and violent release of emotion that doesn’t change or fix Cecil’s ignorance or her own; in fact it goads Cecil to insult Atticus again the next day. In the end, Scout’s violence didn’t solve anything, it just made a path for a problem to arise the following day. Next, Scout and Atticus are juxtaposed as their reactions to Cecil’s comment differ. Scout’s reaction is hotheaded, blind, and continues the contentious feeling between the two classmates; whereas Atticus’s reaction shows empathy towards Scout and a desire to help Scout understand the context of his case. This juxtaposition shows how violence got Scout nowhere with Cecil; however Atticus's approach of ahimsa got his point of view and the facts about the case, through to Scout and helped her solve the conflict between her and Cecil. Later, Scout asks Atticus why he’s defending Tom Robinson and he explains his reasons and warns Scout that she will continue to hear “ugly talk” about him. Through Atticus, Lee uses the line, “Try fighting with your head for a change…”(pg 76) to communicate the metaphor of using intelligence to solve a problem and not violence; which is a change from Scout’s