To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee

A summary about the story that describes some key characters.

To Kill a Mockingbird

by Katy Z. 

18 December 2012

 

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, is a story about how a young girl, Scout, while explaining the story of how her older brother’s arm became injured, also went through the journey of coming  to understand the deeply etched racial discrimination in her community during the 1960s.  She was taught to learn and understand others’ perspectives before making judgments on them and to practice sympathy. She, following her father’s footsteps, slowly took on the belief that racial discrimination was unfair from the many lessons she learned from the people and events around her.

The town of Maycomb, Alabama, the setting for To Kill a Mockingbird, is a racially discriminative, conservative little Southern community. Many of the deeply set conventions and beliefs about racial segregation and society codes created the plots of the story to arise. In example, “She was white, and she tempted a Negro. She did something that in our society is unspeakable: she kissed a black man” (Lee 272). Experiencing unjustly biased trials of the accused black man, Tom Robinson, Scout slowly began to understand the unfairness of society and of the community she had grown up to trust all her life.

The most influential figure in young Scout’s life was her widowed father, Atticus Finch. Atticus was a prominent and respected lawyer of Maycomb County. He was empathetic and understanding of his children, Scout and her brother Jem, always trying his best to teach them the right way to behave and the righteous way to treat others. He suffered harsh remarks and attacks from the community when he agreed to defend Tom Robinson’s case. For example, “Atticus was leaving the post office when Mr. Ewell approached him, cursed him, spat on him, and threatened to kill him” (Lee 291). However, Atticus treated the disrespect courteously which would have had a profound effect on both Scout and Jem.

Towards the end of the story, the man, Arthur (otherwise known as Boo) Radley, that Scout, her brother, and her friend Dill were infatuated with saved Scout and her brother Jem’s lives. After considering Arthur as mentally violent and demented for their whole lives, they realized the fault in their beliefs. As the story came to a conclusion, Scout finally comes to embrace her father’s words on understanding others.