Perspective on Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen. You know Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen. But do you recall the most famous reindeer of all? Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer was misperceived at first. All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names, but after he led Santa’s sleigh, they loved him. Misperceptions like this happen all throughout Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. As you read the novel you see original judgments made about characters transform into new conceptions and new understandings. Some characters twist your views of them on purpose, others do it involuntarily. To Kill a Mockingbird shows this happening over and over again. All you have to do is look for it.
Boo Radley, also known as Arthur Radley, is the scary, evil creature that lives in the creepy old house down the street from Jem and Scout, and is misjudged at first. Jem and Scout, two main characters, first see Boo as some sort of scary monster. Jem described him in the first chapter as “...six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks...” and said “...he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that's why his hands were bloodstained- if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off...” Jem also mentioned Boo had a “...long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time.” Scout and Jem also call Boo a “...malevolent phantom...” As if that isn't bad enough, the kids hear and tell horrible stories about Boo. One is of how he stabbed his dad with a pair of scissors; another tells how he was locked up in the courthouse basement. Even with such a grisly initial perception at the beginning of...

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...al. Tom is a good example as to why you should try to see things from a new perspective.
Everyone in some time or place is misjudged or misunderstood; To Kill a Mockingbird has many examples of this. Whether it be a neighbor you once thought might kill you just by walking past his house; a man you thought was a drunk, but turned out to be deceitful. and wise; or an honest man on trial, who died because of misjudgments. People are misinterpreted everywhere, and “... you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.” The next time you aren’t getting along with someone, and your feel like you just can't stand them, try looking through their perspective. You never know, you may just see them in a whole new light.

Works Cited

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York, New York: Grand Central Publishing, 1960. Print.