Racism, Characters, and Abuse in To Kill a Mockingbird

The characters all have different personalities and styles they each show each other sides that they didn’t know in the beginning of the book. In To Kill a Mockingbird the characters are: Jean Louise Finch(Scout), Atticus Finch, Jeremy Atticus Finch(Jem), Boo Radley, Bob Ewell, Charles Baker Harris(Dill), Miss Maudie Atkinson, Calpurnia, Aunt Alexandra, Mayella Ewell, Tom Robinson, Link Deas, Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose, Nathan Radley, Heck Tate, Mr. Underwood, Mr. Dolphus Raymond, Mr. Walter Cunningha, Walter Cunningham.

Atticus is the father of Jem and Scout he was a lawyer in Maycomb Alabama he was very respectful to blacks and taught his kids the same values. Some kids were not like Jem and Scout and didn’t believe in respecting blacks they were very disrespectful. Atticus once talked about that children might need police because some of them were wild and didn’t know how to act towards blacks but that they could be stopped by evasive action (Atticus Chapter 16). Scout thought there was only one kind of people and that’s people regardless of race (Chapter 23, Scout) from what her dad taught her.

Jem was the brother of Scout he was very brave and adventurous and loved to try new things. Jem was four years older than Scout and was drifting away from her he didn’t want to play her little games anymore. Jem and Scout had over the summer made a best friend nick named Dill his real name was Charles Baker Harris. Dill becomes very attracted to Scout and promises her he’s going to marry her. The three children over the summer spent most of everyday with each other acting out things they have read. They were the best of friends and whenever they were bored Dill would come up with something crazy for them to do. Later in the summe...

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...y asks, "Are we poor Atticus?"(Lee, 21)

So it took an eight-year-old child to bring 'em to their senses.... That proves something - that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they're still human. Hmp, maybe we need a police force of children. ~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 16, spoken by the character Atticus

Tom Robinson is a foil of Boo Radley because of how both of them were described negatively in the book. For example in the story, Scout got into a fight with a classmate named Cecil about her dad defending a black man. Scout comes home and talks to her father about the court case and finds out the name of the black man -- Tom Robinson. Scout thinks that just because someone is black and others say you should not defend a black man you should not, from the quote “‘If you shouldn’t be defendin’ him, then why are you doin’ it?” (Lee 75).