Tuesday, December 28, 2010

What are two passages in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird that show Atticus isn't being a good father/role model?

In To Kill a Mockingbird, there are certainly characters who question Atticus's ability to be a good father and role model. However, the views of those characters are not considered reliable; those views are instead affected by prejudices. Throughout the novel, author Harper Lee develops a tone that indicates she disagrees with the characters who think poorly of Atticus, inciting the reader to disagree with them as well.

One character who clearly sees Atticus as a poor father and role model is Aunt Alexandra, especially with respect to how he raises Scout. In particular, Aunt Alexandra feels he gives Scout far too much freedom to do what she wants to do; the result is that Scout runs wild and is not being raised to be a lady. In Chapter 9, Scout recounts a frequent quarrel she has with her aunt. According to Scout, one thing her aunt says is that Scout "should be a ray of sunshine in [her] father's lonely life." Her aunt further says, Scout was "born good but had grown progressively worse every year." Since it is Atticus's job to raise Scout, Aunt Alexandra's view that Scout had "grown progressively worse" hints at Aunt Alexandra's opinion of Atticus's fathering skills. In Aunt Alexandra's view, Scout was well off when her mother was alive, but Atticus does not know how to raise Scout as a lady and has therefore allowed her to run wild.

Other characters express their views about Atticus being a poor father and role model when they judge him negatively for defending Tom Robinson. Scout observes that, after the trial, her classmates began acting as if their parents were forcing them to be nice to her, since their parents see it is not Scout's fault that she has Atticus for a father, as Scout reflects in the following concerning the "adults of Maycomb," or the parents of Maycomb:



[T]heir attitude must have been that neither of us could help having Atticus for a parent, so their children must be nice to us in spite of him. (Ch. 26)



Scout further reflects on the irony of how, despite the fact the town seemed to think Atticus was a terrible parent, they still elected him again to the state legislature without any opposition.  

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