Critical Themes in To Kill a Mockingbird
Critical Themes in To Kill a Mockingbird
Have you ever read To Kill A Mockingbird? It is a wonderful book by Harper Lee. This book shows great examples of courage, trust, and blindness. These are all displayed throughout the entire book. In the paragraphs that follow, you will read about courage, trust and blindness, and one way that each one is displayed.
Mrs. Dubose shows a great example of courage in this book. Atticus admires her for this. Mrs. Dubose is an elderly woman that lives down the street from the Finch family. She acts highly unsociable, and puts them down whenever they pass by. Scout and Jem don’t like to pass by her house, but because she lives near the Finches, they must pass by regularly. Even though they do their best to be nice to her, she still criticizes the children and Atticus. One day, however, Jem was sick of Mrs. Dubose, because she was saying bad things about Atticus. He broke Scout’s baton, and cut off a bunch of Mrs. Dubose’s camellia bushes. As a punishment, Jem had to go over to Mrs. Dubose’s house every day after school for a month. He then had to read to her 1 hour per day. Scout chose to go with Jem, because they normally hung out together. Later, Jem learned that Mrs. Dubose was fighting a morphine addiction. That is why Atticus admired her for her courage.
Trust is another thing that is greatly displayed through the book. A great example has to do with Atticus talking the Tom Robinson case. Atticus is a lawyer, and he is asked by Judge Taylor to take the case. Obviously he knew Atticus well enough that he would truly defend Tom. Judge Taylor trusted Atticus on this case. Atticus also showed that he could be trusted, by the things he did in spite of the case. For example, he protected Tom. One night, Atticus learned that there was going to be a mob of people. This mob of people had plans to lynch Tom Robinson. If Atticus didn’t trust Tom, and thought that he really did rape Mayella Ewell, then he probably wouldn’t have done what he did. Atticus went to the jail where Tom was located, and waited for the mob to come. He protected to from being lynched by these people. That was why Judge Taylor asked Atticus to...