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quirkyblogs · 6 years ago

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To Kill A Mockingbird — The Importance of Innocence and Compassion

One of the greatest joys in my life is being an Aunty. The other day we picked up my niece and drove her to our school’s pantomime. Afterwards we asked my niece what her favourite part of the play was, she exclaimed excitedly from the baby-seat “the evil lady!” which we both found surprising and hilarious. Even when I’m babysitting her and feel tired, she will never let me give me a break, dragging me along to play another game.

Children don’t have schedules they have to keep up with, don’t have a potential partner, colleagues etc. they need to impress. Children are entirely themselves, unapologetically authentic and often hilarious in the things they say and do. They haven’t learnt prejudices, and the prejudices they seem to have are innocent and incidental — they may say something socially ‘wrong,’ but it’s never out of spite.

I did work experience this year at my old Kindergarten, and you’d get kids come up to you and ask to “hold your hand,” kids who — when you’ve just sat — will run over and plonk down on your lap. At one point I was almost suffocated by five kids hugging me at once. They just do what they want to do, when they want, and there’s a beautiful honesty — and often humour — to the way they talked and acted. They’re not afraid to love and to be seen as silly.

To Kill A Mockingbird has to be one of my favourite books I’ve studied in school. This book teaches us about the importance of protecting innocence and offering compassion, especially to the marginalised and neglected. Atticus is one of my favourite characters in a novel, and I remember someone saying their friend loved the book so much they got a mockingbird tattoo.

Violence isn’t the answer to our problems.

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.” - Atticus

Atticus vouches for using your head to work through adversity, and this wisdom acts as a moral compass navigating his way. He sees the shame and fear which propels acts of violence, the town separated into different sections where black people were segregated, labelled as ‘different’ to white. He doesn’t want Scout “catching Maycomb’s usual disease.”

2. Prejudices are taught, not intrinsic to a person’s character. Understanding this leads to empathy.

People were afraid of this difference, were taught it in their upbringing, and Atticus views this stubborn-mindedness as an ingrained seed. He teaches Scout the power of empathy, telling her “you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” This empathy helps Atticus approach the law case of Tom Robinson in a diplomatic, put-together way.

Atticus tends to see the good in people — not in a naive way, but from a place of knowledge. Mrs Dubose “disapproved heartily of [his] doings,” however Atticus sees past personal views, injustices taught and instead examines her true character past this layer of armour suited to her by the world. To him, Mrs Dubose was “the bravest person [he] knew.”

3. Wisdom in children.

Atticus says “they’ll do it again and when they do it — seems that only children weep.”

In my niece I see the beauty, the purity of innocence, and Atticus admires this in children. There’s a bittersweetness evoked from the line, as when people grow up many lose their innocence, the compassion and honesty.

4. The importance of holding onto innocence.

Atticus observes “there’s something in our world that makes men lose their heads — they couldn’t be fair if they tried.”

Kids view the world through a rosy-coloured lens, through direct lessons taught to “be kind to everyone,” to “wash hands,” to “say hello to the nice old lady with her little doggie walking down the street,” that kinda thing. But they are yet to learn the “but…” “say hello, but stay away from that weird-looking stranger….” We lose some of that innocence, the openness to experience. We become judgemental from what we’re exposed to in our inner circle and media.

5. Atticus endorses life-long learning (semi-spoiler of ending)

I loved the ending. It’s beautiful, and cleverly and poignantly ties up the themes in the book into one lovely conversation between Father and daughter.

Atticus reads a book to Scout in bed, and she exclaims over the ending that “‘The Grey Ghoust’ about a ship an’ Three Fingered Fred ’n’ Stoner’s Boy…when they finally saw him, why he hadn’t done any of those things…Atticus, he was real nice!”

Atticus believes in the power of education, encouraging Scout to “try fighting with [her] head for a change.” This reaffirms to me why books are important in our day and age, and with technological advancements taking over many ‘hard’ skills (manual labour, building, computer stuff), ‘soft’ skills are needed more than ever, especially when we see what’s going on in the world today.

A mention of the book in class the other day, and finding my old English journal where I wrote diary entries on the book reminded me of how much I loved it. Remembering the book, as well as thinking about all these other things inspired me to start this blog. Finally…

Atticus goes as far to say that it’s not just sad to lose innocence and compassion, it’s in fact “a sin” to destroy this, as it’s associated with the violent act of “shoot[ing].”

In our time it’s more important than ever to offer compassion. To wipe out our prejudices and create a more connected world.

#book reviews #booknerd #quotes #atticus #atticusfinch #inspo #books #to kill a mockingbird

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