People's Perspectives On Life In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

Seeing People's Perspectives on Life in To Kill a Mockingbird

Through the development of Jem, in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee teaches us that people tend to misjudge others when they don’t see their perspective on life, which leads to people’s views on the world being limited. During the story, Lee explains how, “Countless evenings Atticus would find Jem furious at something Mrs. Dubose had said when we went by” (103). This affects how Jem views Mrs. Dubose since she was constantly rude and insulting the Finch family. For instance, on page 105 Mrs. Dubose complains, “Not only a Finch waiting on tables but one in the courthouse lawing for n***ers…! Your father’s no better than the n***ers and trash he works for!” Jem did not see Mrs. Dubose’s perspective, so he misjudged her by

Mrs. Dubose’s discourteous actions show us that Jem does have a reason to think of her negatively. Although she was very rude to the Finch family at times, Jem didn’t see her perspective on life, so he did not understand that she had a reason why she was acting this way. On page 114, Atticus explains to Jem that, “Mrs. Dubose was a morphine addict… She took it as a pain-killer for years. The doctor put her on it. She’d have spent the rest of her life on it and died without so much agony, but she was too contrary.” This describes how Mrs. Dubose’s actions were controlled by her addiction, not by her true self. This distraction of Jem reading helped her start to overcome her addiction since she had something else to think about besides the alarm clock and when she would get her next dose of morphine. Jem did not know about Mrs. Dubose’s addiction, which led to his view of the world being limited since he did not know how people being sick could affect how people live and treat others. Mrs. Dubose was not the only person in To Kill a Mockingbird that Jem had misjudged. Boo Radley had always been a mystery to Jem,