In To Kill a Mockingbird, the author Harper Lee shows her astounding writing skills by using universal themes from which anybody can learn. Even more astounding, the themes she used in To Kill a Mockingbird can still be applied today. For example, one theme that still applies today is the problem with racism and how to deal with it. Even though it is not like it was in the 30s, people nowadays still deal with racism and even look down on others that are different. Another theme we can still apply today is understanding the difference between ignorance and knowledge. When a situation makes people uncomfortable, they sometimes tend to ignore what is happening. Today, people need to learn to make an effort to stand up for what is right. In the
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Throughout the beginning of the novel, Scout acts like she is not afraid of anything. Along with fear and courage, Lee mentions the recognition of cowardice and heroism. To Scout and Jem, Atticus is the hero in the story. Yet in the beginning they did not consider their father a hero because he would not play football with the Baptists. But when he shoots a rabid dog, the children learn that their father is humble and is not so much a hero but someone who always does the right thing (Burkhalter ). During the events in the novel, Lee always comes back on how the children are afraid of Boo Radley, their recluse neighbor, but still want to see what he looks like. Somehow Scout always talk Jem and their summer friend, Dill, to sneak up to the Radley’s house and try to look through a window to see if they can see Boo. They tend to work up the courage but then always fail to stay courageous once they get close to the house. They think of Book Radley as some monster but by the end the of the book, both “Scout and Jem abandon their superstitions about Book Radley, learn to value townspeople as individuals, develop moral courage in the face of the town’s hypocrisy, realize that justice should be administered without regard to race and class, and, Atticus’s final lesson, learn that most people are nice when you finally come to understand them (Gandy ). In part two of the book, the children come to realization about social inequality. Because of the trial the kids realize that they are near the top of Maycomb’s social hierarchy. With that, “Lee uses the children’s perplexity at the unpleasant layering of Maycomb society to critique the role of class status and, ultimately, prejudice in human interaction” (Bloom Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird 9). With the social inequality, the children both realize that one must not give up fighting for what is right and fight for equal justice for all
Throughout the beginning of the novel, Scout acts like she is not afraid of anything. Along with fear and courage, Lee mentions the recognition of cowardice and heroism. To Scout and Jem, Atticus is the hero in the story. Yet in the beginning they did not consider their father a hero because he would not play football with the Baptists. But when he shoots a rabid dog, the children learn that their father is humble and is not so much a hero but someone who always does the right thing (Burkhalter ). During the events in the novel, Lee always comes back on how the children are afraid of Boo Radley, their recluse neighbor, but still want to see what he looks like. Somehow Scout always talk Jem and their summer friend, Dill, to sneak up to the Radley’s house and try to look through a window to see if they can see Boo. They tend to work up the courage but then always fail to stay courageous once they get close to the house. They think of Book Radley as some monster but by the end the of the book, both “Scout and Jem abandon their superstitions about Book Radley, learn to value townspeople as individuals, develop moral courage in the face of the town’s hypocrisy, realize that justice should be administered without regard to race and class, and, Atticus’s final lesson, learn that most people are nice when you finally come to understand them (Gandy ). In part two of the book, the children come to realization about social inequality. Because of the trial the kids realize that they are near the top of Maycomb’s social hierarchy. With that, “Lee uses the children’s perplexity at the unpleasant layering of Maycomb society to critique the role of class status and, ultimately, prejudice in human interaction” (Bloom Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird 9). With the social inequality, the children both realize that one must not give up fighting for what is right and fight for equal justice for all