“No one knows for certain how much impact they have on the lives of other people. Often times, we have no clue. Yet we push it just the same,” - Jay Asher. Family is one thing that has a major impact on the lives of its members; every experience, disagreement, quarrel, and lesson learned really shapes the members of a family and makes them who they are.
Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is about the lives of the people of fictional Maycomb, Alabama as narrated by Jean Louise “Scout” Finch. Scout tells about her own family consisting of her father Atticus, brother Jem, and their cook Calpurnia. She discloses the details on Tom Robinson’s corrupt trial, her summertime adventures with Jem and their friend Dill, their mysteriously scary …show more content…
Dubose. Every person and family, not just in the story but in the real world as well, have their own unique thoughts, personalities, morals and beliefs. In her novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee shows through various family situations that parents and caregivers truly do shape their children, and have a major influence the person that they grow up to be.
The first example of parental influence is one of negativity as displayed by the Ewell family. For instance, the Ewell’s have a poor home life, being deep in poverty and living in what is essentially a dump. However, Mr. Ewell is lazy, and does nothing to try to dig his family out of poverty. He has a drinking problem along with raging anger issues, and he takes his frustrations out on other people, such as Atticus Finch in one instance. Atticus destroyed Mr. Ewell’s last shred of credibility in the Tom Robinson trial, so he goes up to him shortly after the trial’s end and inundates him with harsh words and gestures, “Atticus was leaving the post office when Mr. Ewell approached him, cursed him, spat on him, and threatened to kill him,” (Lee 291). Mr. Ewell usually takes this anger out on his children, which has a huge impact on them. Since their father lacks the care and loving attention that they …show more content…
The way Atticus firmly, yet lovingly teaches his children right from wrong and how to treat others impacts his children in the best possible way. For instance, Atticus realizes after Scout’s first day of school that she needs to be taught an important lesson about empathy, because she is not getting along well with her teacher. Her teacher had told Scout that she is not allowed to read with her father ever again, and Scout is extremely upset and distressed over the situation. Atticus notices her distress and tells her, “If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it,” (Lee 39). By this gentle way of teaching, he influences Jem and Scout to become good-natured, courageous, and empathetic towards others, and they would never dare to disobey him simply because they would feel horrible for letting him down. Scout proves this statement when she is about to get into a fight with a boy at school who is trash-talking her father for defending a black man. She starts rearing up to throw a punch when an important lesson Atticus taught her comes to mind, and the promise that she made to him to start fighting with her head instead of her fists, “I drew a
Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is about the lives of the people of fictional Maycomb, Alabama as narrated by Jean Louise “Scout” Finch. Scout tells about her own family consisting of her father Atticus, brother Jem, and their cook Calpurnia. She discloses the details on Tom Robinson’s corrupt trial, her summertime adventures with Jem and their friend Dill, their mysteriously scary …show more content…
Dubose. Every person and family, not just in the story but in the real world as well, have their own unique thoughts, personalities, morals and beliefs. In her novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee shows through various family situations that parents and caregivers truly do shape their children, and have a major influence the person that they grow up to be.
The first example of parental influence is one of negativity as displayed by the Ewell family. For instance, the Ewell’s have a poor home life, being deep in poverty and living in what is essentially a dump. However, Mr. Ewell is lazy, and does nothing to try to dig his family out of poverty. He has a drinking problem along with raging anger issues, and he takes his frustrations out on other people, such as Atticus Finch in one instance. Atticus destroyed Mr. Ewell’s last shred of credibility in the Tom Robinson trial, so he goes up to him shortly after the trial’s end and inundates him with harsh words and gestures, “Atticus was leaving the post office when Mr. Ewell approached him, cursed him, spat on him, and threatened to kill him,” (Lee 291). Mr. Ewell usually takes this anger out on his children, which has a huge impact on them. Since their father lacks the care and loving attention that they …show more content…
The way Atticus firmly, yet lovingly teaches his children right from wrong and how to treat others impacts his children in the best possible way. For instance, Atticus realizes after Scout’s first day of school that she needs to be taught an important lesson about empathy, because she is not getting along well with her teacher. Her teacher had told Scout that she is not allowed to read with her father ever again, and Scout is extremely upset and distressed over the situation. Atticus notices her distress and tells her, “If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it,” (Lee 39). By this gentle way of teaching, he influences Jem and Scout to become good-natured, courageous, and empathetic towards others, and they would never dare to disobey him simply because they would feel horrible for letting him down. Scout proves this statement when she is about to get into a fight with a boy at school who is trash-talking her father for defending a black man. She starts rearing up to throw a punch when an important lesson Atticus taught her comes to mind, and the promise that she made to him to start fighting with her head instead of her fists, “I drew a