To kill a mockingbird final essay

To Kill a MockingbirdAtticus Finch once said “ 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”. This quote means that before someone judges another person they first need to understand them and understand the reasons for their actions. I agree with this quote because many people wonder why people act the way they do and do the things that they do, but they never consider asking them or thinking about what they are going through.

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee two literary elements which are setting and characterization can help support my position by showing how people judge others by false rumors and appearance. The setting in To Kill a Mockingbird plays a major role in why the character Tom Robinson was judged. Setting is the place and time in which a story takes place. The setting of this story was in a little town called Maycomb, Alabama in 1933 which was a time of segregation and a lot of judgment towards different races.

The character Tom Robinson was one of the African Americans in this novel and he was accused of raping a white girl named Mayella. Since this was a time where black people had little rights, everyone initially believed Mayella. They judged Tom Robinson because of his skin color and they did not believe his side of the story since they did not take the chance to consider things from his point of view. If they took the chance to try to understand Tom Robinson then they would have known that he was a harmless young man.

The reader of this novel will never truly understand how Tom Robinson felt by being accused of such a horrible crime unless they climbed into his skin and walked around in it. In To Kill a Mockingbird, may people judged Boo Radley’s character off of false rumors. Nobody understood why he did many things he did. In this novel, characterization supports my position. Characterization is the process by which the writer reveals thepersonalityof a character through direct and indirect characterization. Boo Radley was a quiet person who never really came outside, and many people thought he was creepy because of all the rumors spread about him.

Scout described Boo Radley as being sickly white, with a thin mouth and hair and grey eyes, almost as if he was blind. Many rumors made Boo Radley seem like a scary guy but many of his actions showed otherwise. He left harmless pennies, gum, and wax dolls for Scout and Jem and throughout the novel he proved all of the rumors wrong. The character Boo Radley supports my position by showing how people judge based off what others say instead of trying to understand that person and trying to understand what they have been through in their life. In conclusion, both characterization and setting in To Kill a Mockingbird support my position.

Harper Lee showed how two innocent characters could be greatly judged off of other people’s opinion. The setting of this novel played a major role in Tom Robinson’s life. Even though Tom Robinson may have not done anything to Mayella the people believed Mayella since it was in the 1930’s and black people had little rights. Boo Radley was just a character who did not bother others but had many fans. Boo Radley was a mystery that everyone was waiting to see what he would do next. Both characters can agree with this quote because no one could truly understand them unless they climbed in there skin and walked around in it.