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Walter And Burris Character Analysis

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During the mid 1930s, nearly 45 percent of Americans lived in poverty. For children who live in impoverished conditions, the affect on their behavior can vary, depending on how they are raised and taught. In To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, she introduces two characters, Walter and Burris, who are both examples of kids living in impoverished conditions. Even though both Walter and Burris are poor, they are raised differently. As a result, their behavior is different; Walter understands the value of things compared to Burris who does not and Walter tries to make a difference in his situation, while Burris does not try to do anything. Walter understands the value of things, compared to Burris who does not. For example, in the first day …show more content…

For example, Walter was unable to pass first grade because “[He] had to stay out ever’ spring an’ help [his] Papa with the choppin’” (Lee 24). Walter tries to get a good education in school, but he could not, because he had to help his father with harvesting crops. Walter knows that the crops were his family’s source of money, and that his family is poor, so he sacrifices his own education in order to help his family, and potentially get his family out of poverty. On the other hand, Burris could “go to school any time… [he] want[s] to” (Lee 30), but instead, like the other Ewells, he “come[s] [to] [the] first day every year and then leave[s]” (Lee 27). Burris does not even try to improve his own life, by getting and education, but instead just lives his life the way it is. The cause of the Burris not trying could be because of the fact that the “Ewells had been the disgrace of Maycomb for three generations” (Lee 30). Due to the environment that Burris grew up in, dishonesty and not going to school was the norm, so by not going to school, he felt normal, and felt like he fitted in with his family, compared to going to school and being different from everybody else in his

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In Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Burris Ewell and Walter Cunningham are both poor, but they are very different in several ways. They are like two sides of the same coin, and Scout learns a lot about the poor through them. First, Burris Ewell and Walter Cunningham's appearances contrast greatly. Walter tries tries to look presentable, while Burris does not.

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In "To Kill a Mockingbird" Walter has to walk around barefoot and can't even afford a lunch. Walter is a Cunningham and they have been poor for generations and will be poor for generations to come. The story backs up this statement well, "They don't have much, but they get along with it. " They are referring to the Cunninghams and their poverty. In the story "A Part of the Sky" the boy has to work for his family at the age of 13 years old because they need the money.

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There are many different social classes that are greatly represented in Lee's well known book "To kill a Mockingbird." For example, the Cunningham's in the Ewell's. In the book, Walter Cunningham attends school regularly to get a good education, while Burris Ewell only shows up for the first day of school every year. This is a very subtle representation of the different social classes.

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One example is the Cunninghams family, “The Cunninghams never took anything they couldn’t pay back… they never took anything off of people, they got along with what they have. They don’t have much, but get along on it” (Lee 26). The Cunninghams are a poor, but also a happy family that will pay you back not with money, but with goods and satisfying items. As a result , poverty is a theme in To Kill a Mockingbird, and I believe it infiltrates knowledge into the reader about life and the society around

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In this story To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee we met a new character Burris’s. From what I have gathered his attitude is terrible and his family can't be much different. Burris’s family is not complete and doesn’t care is because he has no mother and we don't even know if he has a dad. Burris’s family doesn't really care if Burris or his siblings only go to school on the first day and then skips the rest of the year and Also threatens the teacher to mark him absent. Their also poor because Burris showed up to school with lice and covered head to toe in dirt, and i'm going to assume they don't have running water.

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In conjunction with this time of calamity, Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird instills an apparent disparity of economic classes that is distributed amongst its characters throughout the Alabama town of Maycomb. This notion of economic disparity is manifested

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