Personal Response

“Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded
as a masterpiece of American literature.” Even on telegraph.co.uk, To Kill a Mockingbird was
voted as the best novel of all time. I believe that it’s the lessons of the book and the moral
values of the characters that puts this book on top of all the other books. Everything is portrayed
through this book, including the reality of life and cruelty involved in it as well. However, there
were two things that stood out to me the most that were shown through this well written novel.

The first includes Atticus Finch’s character. Atticus is an old man of 50 years old in this
book, and is often a role model to Scout and Jem throughout this book, especially with his wife
dead. Atticus is designated to defend the black Tom Robinson, and in this time of history, black
people were discriminated as lower solely because of their skin color. However, Atticus
regarded everyone as equal, as the founding fathers had once said. After all, “You never really
understand a person until you consider things from his point of view and climb into his skin and
walk around in it.” Atticus was the master of not judging people from the outside, and reminding
people to actually look at their point of view, and consider what’s going on with them, instead of
just judging them by their actions. Atticus demonstrated this not only with Tom Robinson, but
others such as Mrs. Dubose, and even Bob Ewell after he threatened Atticus. After that, Atticus
still believed that he was good at heart, and even insisted that Jem killed Mr. Ewell in the end.
Atticus believed that no matter what anyone did, that they were good at heart, and that they
could get the sense knocked back into them, even if “it took an eight-year-old child to bring ‘em
to their senses.”

An additional thing that I admire Atticus for was his ability to keep his temper down. No
matter how many times people called him extremely hurtful things such as “nigger lover,” he
kept his cool, and still believed that everyone was good at will, but had gone through some
tough times and developed “blind spots.” Atticus also the individuality to have a different set of
values than the values of the society, and he’s able to avoid those negative values and uphold
his own, more righteous ones. I wish that I could have that will to uphold my own separate
values, and not think about the media’s or the society’s values. Almost everyone gets caught up
in those values. People start to care more about their personal image, the clothes they were,
what they look like, and it just turns into a huge mess. However, Atticus is able to keep his
things straight, and prioritize things.

The second includes the protagonist, Scout. Scout undergoes all types of changes
throughout this novel. She faces minor problems such as “becoming more ladylike” because of
the lack of feminine influence in her childhood because of the early death of her mother and her
life with only her father and brother. However, what I see as the biggest change is Scout having
to grasp the idea that there are people in the world that do evil things, and their reasons for
doing so. Being such a little kid, Scout is curious about the world, but she doesn’t understand
why people do the bad things that they do. Scout’s quest to gain more knowledge about the
world puts her on this adventure that exposes her to the reality of the world, and the beauty of it
as well.
 Personally, I think my relationship with God relates to this in some fashion. I know what
God did for us, but I don’t fully understand everything. My personal quest is to understand God
more in depth, and although I’ll never be able to understand all of the grace of God and his
mighty, every bit of knowledge I learn will be a new step, just like in Scout’s case. Often times,
we take God for granted, and although we forget him at times, he still acts as our guardian, and
waits for us to come back to him, and protects us from getting in trouble. He even has a plan
already set out for us, and all we need to do is honor Him for everything He’s done for us. After
all, he didn’t owe us anything. He made the universe; he made Earth; and he made us, and he
said that we were his best creation. However, we sin against Him, yet he still loves us, and sent
His only son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for us, and wipe away our sins as white as snow.

Even though Harper Lee might consider this story as just a simple love story, I think it’s a
much more complex and well developed book than she may consider it. The moral values
represented through the story in this book make you stop and rethink all the things that are even
vaguely connected. To Kill a Mockingbird definitely has my vote for the best novel of all time.