To Kill a Mockingbird by Lee Harper - Essay Example

The novel delineates the issue of good and evil permeating the society by following the innocent notions of Scout and Jem who having not seen any evil owing to being so young consider everybody to be inherently good to their graduation to a more adult perspective which comes across the existence of evil and tends to get accustomed to this newfound reality by readjusting its perceptions regarding the real world. For instance, Scout comes across the evil of small mindedness at her school when her teacher reacts to her reading skills by saying that,”Your father does not know how to teach.

You can have a seat now. This very transition of the personality of Scout and Jem from a nascent and untouched innocence to an amazed adult acceptance of the evil inherent in individuals and groups, immaculately delineates the impact of evil on the innocent and the unsuspecting. This realization is displayed in contrast to the moral voice of a more mature Atticus who though having experienced the evil inherent in people had really not lost his trust in the essential goodness of human beings. The other special thing about To Kill a Mockingbird is that it grapples with the notion of courage from varied perspectives and facets.

Scout and Jem, like many other people of their age group, to begin with confuse courage with raw strength. They feel that courage means to be able to have one’s way by the usage of raw strength. However, as the two young people move ahead in life, they begin to realize that courage is not merely about brute force., but rather it is the ability to be able to discern between the right and the wrong amidst the pressing group affiliations and expectations. This dawns on them as they comes across several instances of courage in the story like Mrs.

Dubose’s battle with her morphine addiction, Dill’s return to Maycomb after escaping from his stepfather, Atticus’s decision to represent Tom Robison amidst the prevailing prejudice, Boo’