In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird the main character Jean Louise Finch (AKA Scout) learns a lot of lessons. But I think the lesson she learns can be categorized in 3 categories, which are life, people and society. Scout learns 3 important things about life in the book. One thing she learns is that life is unfair. She experiences this in a court case with her dad defending a black man named Tom Robinson who is accused for raping Male Lowell the daughter of Bob Lowell. Mr..
Tactics had very good reasons on why Tom should not be accused of rape and everyone in the court including the Jury and Judge were sure that he would win but at the end of the case the Jury decided that Tom is the one who raped Male Just because he of his skin color. The reverend knew this would happen when he said “.. , . I anti ever seen a Jury decide in favor off colored man instead of a white man… ” (Lee 79) The next she learns is from her dad Tactics; he teaches her that violence is not the only way to solve problems. At school a boy named Cecil Jacobs calls Tactics a Niger lover because he is supporting Tom Robinson.
When Scout heard this she beat up Cecil. When Tactics heard about this, he told Scout to “hold [her] head up high and keep [her] fists down” (Lee 101). The last thing Scout learns about life is that people are considered good on what they do not what they claim about themselves. She learns this when Ms. Maude tells her that, “If Tactics Finch drank until he is drunk he wouldn’t be as hard as some men at their best. There are Just some kind of men who – where so busy worrying about the next world heavy never learned to live this one, and you can look down the street and see the results…. UT now… I’ll say this: Tactics Finch is the same inside his house as he is on the public streets. ” (Lee 60). So these are the main things about life that Scout learns in the novel. The second thing Scout learnt throughout the novel is about the people she saw everyday and talked to most of the time in her town. First of all she learns that to really know about a person you have to step in their shoes and see what they are thinking, feeling and what problems they have.
Scout learnt this important lesson when her dad Tactics said to her, “you never really understand a person until you consider things from [their] point of view… And climb into their skin and walk around it” (Lee 39). Next she learns that you should not Judge people on what other people tell you. She learns this lesson near the end of the novel when Arthur Raddled saves boot Gem and Scout trot I At the beginning to the book Scout’s trends tell her that Arthur Raddled is an ugly man who eats the cats he catches and they refer to him as Boo as if he is a ghost.
But at the end she finds out that Arthur Raddled is the one who saved her and Gem. Scout also learns that both white and black people are the same. During the Tom Robinson trials she notices how Tom Robinson is a nice person by helping Male. Scout is surprised of how Tom helped a white person even though the whites were considered as enemies to the Negroes. She is amazed that he still helped whites, without any charge, after what gruesome things they have done to them. These are the three main lessons Scout learns about the people in the Town of Macomb County.
Scout learns some important things about her society as well. The first thing she learns about is hypocrisy. One day Scout is hanging out with the older women. The women have a meeting, what they call a missionary circle where they would talk about ‘important news’. During this meeting they were talking about the Marinas a tribe in Africa and Ms. Meriwether says to Scout that she told Mr.. Everett the man helping the Marinas at a camp in Africa that, “The ladies of Macomb Alabama Methodist Episcopal Church South are behind you one hundred percent”(Lee 309).
Scout soon realizes that Ms. Meriwether wants to help people half way across the world when there are black people Just down the street who need help. The next lesson Scout learns is about the hierarchy in her society. During the Tom Robinson trial there is a part where Mr.. Gilder asks Tom Robinson why he is helping Male Lowell. To this Tom Robinson replies, mimes such. I felt right sorry for her, she seemed to try Moreno the rest of ‘me-” (Lee 264). To what Tom had said Mr.. Gilder glanced at the jury surprisingly and said, muff felt sorry for her, you felt sorry for her? (Lee 264) Scout realized that Mr.. Gilder is surprised because in Macomb white men were the most powerful, then it is the white women, then the black men and lastly the black women. Since a black man is sorry for white women it not considered right for Tom to do this. So Scout basically learns that there is a hierarchy in her society. Scout learns one more thing about her society, it is about race. She finds a lot of racist behavior in the people of Macomb. There is an incident in the book where Scout and Gem are taken to a black church by California.
When the reach the church Eula May doesn’t let hem come in to the church because the children were white. So Scout realizes that not only white people are racist to black people the black people are also racist to white people. So these are the three main facts Scout learns about her society. In conclusion, throughout the novel Scout learns important things about life, people and society. There were many other things Scout learnt in this book but the things she learnt for these three topics would be the most important lessons in her life. Work Cited: Lee, Harper, To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Grand Central, 2010
