Spring 2008 High School Edition
Little Lessons That Make a Big Difference
Chelsey Hansen
Formal (9th-10th)
Third Place
Canyon View High School
Teacher: Mr. Christensen
To Kill a Mockingbird is a literary classic. This is because it teaches lessons about life that most people experience and can connect with. Everyone has to do something they don’t want to. Each person is learning that there’s more to people than just what they see and to listen to their parents. The book has two main stories, but it is also full of many other small stories that play an important role in it. Everybody should read this book because it is entertaining and realistic.
First, everyone does something they hate. For Scout, it is going to school. On the first day of school, Scout’s teacher says that her father does not know how to teach and that she will have to undo the damage (17). Later on, Scout tells her dilemma to Atticus. She and Atticus make a compromise. “If you’ll concede the necessity of going to school, we’ll go on reading every night just as we always have” (31). This experience teaches Scout that she will face situations in her future that are not favorable but will help her.
Second, Jem learns to appreciate his father. Jem has to read to the opinionated Mrs. Dubose for tearing up her camellias when she calls Atticus a “Nigger Lover.” Each day, she has Jem and Scout stay a little bit later. When Mrs. Dubose dies, Jem finds out that she was a morphine addict:
She said she was going to leave this world beholden to nothing and nobody. Jem, when you’re as sick as she was, it’s all right to take anything to make it easier, but it wasn’t all right for her. She said she meant to break herself of it before she died and that’s what she did. Most of the time you were reading to her I doubt if she heard a word you said. Her whole mind and body were concentrated on that alarm clock. If you hadn’t fallen into her hands, I’d have made you go read to her anyway. It may have been some distraction. (111)
To make Jem know that everything was okay, Mrs. Dubose gave him a box with a perfect camellia inside:
You know she was a great lady. She had her own views about things, a lot different than mine, maybe, son, I told you that if you hadn’t lost your head I’d have made you go read to her. I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you being anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. She was the bravest person I ever knew. (112)
Third, Scout learns that everybody has another side. In chapter fifteen, Jem, Scout, and Dill follow Atticus to the Maycomb Jail. Scout saves Atticus by running into the mob of men that were surrounding him and talking to the only familiar face she could find, Mr. Cunningham. “Don’t you remember me, Mr. Cunningham? I’m Jean Louise Finch; I go to school with Walter. He’s a good boy. A real nice boy” (153-154). Because Scout makes small talk with Mr. Cunningham, the mob leaves. “So it took an eight-year old child to bring them to their senses That proves something- that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they’re still human” (157).
In conclusion, To Kill a Mockingbird is a great book because everyone relates to it in one way or another. Each person has to do things they hate and learn from the experience. Everyone has two sides, like Atticus said, “You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them” (279). Adults have more knowledge and experience than they are given credit for and can offer help. This is a spectacular book and most everyone will enjoy reading it.
Works Cited:
Lee, Harper. To Kill A Mockingbird. Warner: New York, 1960.
| English Department | College of Humanities & Social Sciences |