To Kill A Mockingbird Themes

Oceana Presley
Mrs.Vidaurri
English 9 Honors, Period 1
23 March 2016 There are many themes in the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee many of which are very important to the storyline and how things turn out for scout and her family. In her 1960 novel, To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee illustrates the theme a person's environment shapes his or her perspective in order to express that the people we surround ourselves with our family, friends, peers, and colleagues very well change the way one thinks and what they believe. The family: Scout and Jem are both raised by Atticus. A man who has few rules but rules that are always important, have a purpose, and never just because. This is something that makes it easy for kids to understand and

He even points out this subtle anonymous fact. “If you had been on that jury, son and eleven other boys like you, Tom would be a free man, said Atticus. So far nothing in your life has interfered with your reasoning process.” (Lee 295). This shows that Jem has little to no bias and looks purely at the facts, something that they could use a lot more in courts then and now. Even if he did have a bias it would have been towards the idea that all men are very well created equal and need to be treated like that. This comes from his upbringing and being raised by Atticus a man that is the same in the house as he is on the streets, he treats everyone fairly deserving of it or not. The Finches seem to make some connections that the rest of Maycomb can't seem to make. They have some insight and or perspective on things others can simply not make. “Scout, he said, Mr. Ewell fell on his knife. Can you possibly understand? ...Yes sir, I understand, I Reassured him. Mr. Tate was right. Atticus disengaged himself and

They were raised by their parents who had a bias that was passed down to them through a number of generations and even if they thought different, nobody wanted to be the person who supported the African-American community nor any other during this time.”But I want to play with Walter, Aunty, why can’t I? She took off her glasses and stared at me. I’ll tell you why, she said. Because ---he---is---trash, that's why you can’t play with him.”(Lee 301) Even Scout and Jem's very own Aunt Alexandra does not want their family to be associated with a lower social class in general. Aunt Alexandra later even proves to be very biased against the African-American community as seen in chapter 14 “You all were coming back from Calpurnia's church that Sunday?... Yessum, and she promised me I could come out to her house some afternoon. Atticus, I’ll go next Sunday if it's alright, can I? Cal said she’d come get me if you were off in the car. You may not! Aunt Alexandra had said it. I wheeled around, startled.”(Lee 181) Aunt Alexandra seems to be one of the few Life role model characters that seems to have had been raised at the same upper-class standards as Atticus and yet, refuses to sway in the least in her beliefs that there should be no interracial anything from the church outings to social meetings to