Theme Of Diction In To Kill A Mockingbird

“You never stopped to give me a chance to tell you my side of it.” Often times, adults rarely treat children with the same respect they treat other adults with. They use their act now and ask questions never method, which is ever present in the lives of most children. Sometimes it takes a child to remind adults that children are people. As an objective whole, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a tale about the childhood of a young girl growing up in the 1930s whose father, a lawyer, takes a case defending a black man, Tom Robinson, against the word of a white man, Bob Ewell, and his daughter, Mayella Ewell. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses the scene in which Scout is listening into her Uncle Jack discussing his reaction to Scout’s …show more content…
For instance, when Uncle Jack reveals that he had lied to Scout about the definition of a swear word she had not known the meaning of, Atticus advises not to “‘make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles them’” (116). The diction used to describe the avoidance of Scout’s question shows that the avoidance is an endeavor that will bear fruit for none. Atticus’ use of the word “production” makes one see that the lies adults tell children are often more elaborate than need be, with a lot of effort put into the creation of such a lie. The word “evasion” could make one imagine that the person telling the lie is figuratively playing the game of cat and mouse, also saying that the liar is not the cat. When one thinks of the word “muddles”, a person in a murky state of mind, dazed and confused may come to mind. These words, collectively, show that adults lying to children neither allows children to learn and grow nor shows that the adult believes in the competence of the child, with adults going to great lengths to avoid the truth. Also, when discussing how the case will affect the children, Atticus hoping he “‘can get Jem and Scout through it...without catching Maycomb’s usual disease’” (117). The diction used to describe racism paints it in a negative light. When using the term “usual disease” to describe the rampant …show more content…
On the literal level, this passage describes the treatment of the swearing of children, the behavior Scout displays, and the effects of Atticus taking Tom Robinson’s case. On the figurative level, however, the text describes the respect one should have for children’s privacy, dignity, and effort and the respect one should have for the human rights of, in this particular text, black people. This text matters because the concept of respect is often lost for people who are not yet adults, who are not white, or who are not of some other descriptor that is often used to determine the humanity of people, such as gender or sexuality. With more people consuming texts that consistently display the value of respect, perhaps the world may one day unanimously agree that respect is deserved by