preview

Evaluation of to Kill a Mockingbird Essay

Better Essays

The grown up Scout, narrates her retrospective story of one life changing summer, as seen through her eyes, as a six-year-old tomboy. Scout (Mary Badham), her brother Jem, and their summer time friend, Dill, spend their days gallivanting through town, playing with tires as toys, telling exaggerated stories, and challenging each other to approach the dilapidated and gloomy house of the neighborhood “bogeyman”, a recluse named Boo Radley (Robert Duval), who was rumored to be a vicious and scary creature. The focus on Boo is quickly overshadowed when Scouts widowed Father, lawyer Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck), takes the insurmountable case, of a black man accused of raping a white woman. In a time before desegregation was even a thought, black …show more content…

While, it is true that the children are not interviewed for their opinion on life and are not outwardly expressive of their thoughts, it is no mystery as to how they felt through each life-changing event. The sentimental and thought-provoking story begins by establishing the nucleus of the film, the Finch Family, lead by the father Atticus Finch, who is the quintessential father, strong, honest, intuitive, and spoke with wisdom; whose character was consistently imparted to his children through small teachings on life as it unfolds. One such example shows Atticus hugging Scout as they swing back and forth on the front porch, He tells her, "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." In another scene after being teased at school for her father defending a Negro, Scout questions her father as to why he chose to take the case. He states that if he didn't he would be unable to "hold his head up high", or even tell his children what to do anymore. Given the standard of that day, Atticus was risking his reputation and even the safety of his children by defending a black man. These phenomenal displays of impeccable character are so rare that it causes the credibility of the role to come into question; Atticus, at times seems too stoic to be

Get Access