Harper Lee’s book To Kill a Mockingbird addresses important societal issues such as racism, discrimination against people and children with illnesses, and how the main character believes children should be raised. The story is told from Scout’s perspective, Atticus Finch’s daughter. When Atticus, as a lawyer, decides to defend an African-American man accused of raping a white girl, his children are bullied at school by the teacher.
Scout does not want to go to school, and her father wants to know why (Lee 32). When she tells her what the teacher says about them, Atticus responds that people will never understand another person unless they put themselves in their shoes (Lee 32). This quote encapsulates the book’s entire point, explaining why Atticus chose to protect the African American, why he teaches the children not to hurt Mockingbird because he is harmless, and why even bad people must first be understood.
In my life, I frequently encounter people who are discriminated against for various reasons, and putting myself in their shoes makes it clear to me how unfair this discrimination is. However, there are plenty of people around me who believe it is acceptable to hate someone simply because they know exactly what their crimes are. I frequently avoid going into too much detail about why that person is guilty or not.
I know people who despise an entire country because they believe it is responsible for terrible crimes against humanity. For example, I hated the person who bullied me, but I did not put myself in their shoes to understand why they were so unfair to me. Maybe this person had someone who bullied them at home, or maybe they saw their relatives quarrel, or even worse.
This quote is relevant now because people all judge others on some level, possibly without fully understanding why they act the way they do, but we find it easier to judge them than to understand them. This does not make bullies any better; instead, Atticus suggests that we accept their misconceptions because they were raised differently. I believe that in a book about unfairly blaming someone simply because they have a different skin color, it was important to demonstrate how misguided we can be about another person. So, this quote is important to the story to understand every character, even the bad ones.
Work Cited
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. 50th ed., HarperCollins Publishers, 1998.