The novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee tells about innocence, knowledge, prejudice, and courage. The main character Scout Finch lives with her brother Jem and their widowed father in the sleepy town of Maycomb. Maycomb is suffering from the Great Depression in the 1930's. Atticus parenting method is kind of unique and radical for that period. Through Atticus's parenting way Jem and Scout Finch start to understand the world in more adult ways. Atticus teaches his children to have tolerance towards others, that racism is intolerable, and to have courage as seen in the trial, in regard to Mrs Dubose and in the Boo Radley case.
Atticus Finch gives his children lessons to tolerance by teaching them not to judge people and to get to know them first. In chapter three, Scout has had a bad day at school. She comes home in a bad mood about what had happened with her teacher and asks Atticus if she can stay at home and not return to school. Atticus wants to teach her “one simple trick” which helps her to develop throughout the story. “You never understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” (Lee 30). In this way, Atticus is reaching out to his daughter in an attempt to explain to her that it is wrong to be judgemental without knowing the person's particular circumstances. One can never fully understand other people and what motivates them. As he does this, he is showing Scout how one needs to act and what needs to be learned before making a judgment about the person. People can not make this kind of decisions until one is ready to take the time to understand someone else and put themselves in their position. At the end of the book, she succeeds in understanding Boo Radley’s perspective.
Atticus teaches his children not to be racist and to treat everyone as an equal. In chapter eleven Scout asks Atticus what the term “nigger-lover” means since Mrs...