To Kill A Mockingbird Trial

In Maycomb County, Alabama, on Halloween night, a girl becomes a young woman, and a boy becomes a man. In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, the Finch children realize that life is not always like the games they play.

Through the events and results of the trial of Tom Robinson, the Finch children get a clearer view on the extreme racism and violence of the deep south. During the trial, the Finch children do not recognize the bias of the situation. While listening to the four different witness’ testimonies, oblivious to the curtailed life span of a black rape suspect, Jem is sure that they have won, “We’ve got him”(Lee, 238) he claims. In cross-examination, when prosecuting attorney Horace Gilmer was being very aggressive towards Tom, Jem

For example, Scout’s teacher Miss Gates speaks to the children in class about Hitler and the struggles that the jewish people were going through, and how “Over here we don’t believe in persecuting anybody. Persecution comes from people who are prejudiced.”(Lee,329). However, Scout overheard Miss Gates say horrible things about the black community at the Tom Robinson trial. Scout wonders how Miss Gates can be sympathetic about the persecution of the jewish people and then turn around and persecute African-Americans. When Aunt Alexandra comes to live with the finch family, she brings Jem and Scout right into the middle of all the hypocrisy. Aunt Alexandra quickly gets comfortable and establishes a firm distinction between people who are “fine folks” and people who are not. Fine folks in Aunt Alexandra’s mind, of course need to be white and Christian. Scout believes that fine folks are kind people with good sense, “but Aunt Alexandra was of the opinion obliquely expressed, that the longer a family had been squatting on one patch of land the finer it was”(Lee,173). Aunt Alexandra’s counter parts, the saintly ladies of the Maycomb Alabama Methodist Episcopal Church South missionary circle also display hypocrisy in their very short appearance in the book. While

At the beginning of the book, Jem and scout saw Boo as the “malevolent phantom”(Lee,10) who lived inside the Radley house, the man who peeked through your windows late at night, dined on raw squirrels, and pierced his father’s leg with a pair of scissors. However, throughout the book the children start to realize that Boo is the furthest thing from a monster. Throughout the story the children are curious as to why Boo Radley never comes outside, a few times they try to get him to come outside. After a long conversation about Aunt Alexandra and her strange dislike for certain social classes, using their childish innocence, Jem and Scout start to see the strangeness and ambiguity in the social behavior of humankind. Jem claims that “[He is] beginning to understand why Boo Radley stayed shut up in the house all this time... it’s because he wants to stay inside”(Lee,304). After saving the children’s lives, Scout walks Boo home, she reaches the porch and realizes when she turns around that the whole town of Maycomb is visible from the porch. Scout realizes that “Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough.”(Lee,374) Scout seeing the world from the Radley porch is a coming of age moment in a classic