To+Kill+A+Mockingbird



When I was in elementary school, I lived on a short, paved road with 10 houses on it. While reading //To Kill A Mockingbird// by Harper Lee, I constantly thought back to my little street on Oakdale Drive. Oakdale Drive was my Mayberry. One day, my brother and I were outside when we noticed two new kids across the street. We would soon come to know them as Henry and Trevor, and they were my Dill. Their parent were divorced, so they would only be at our house on the weekends much like Dill only visited Mayberry in the summer. We went on adventures through the woods behind our house, acted through movies, and kept secrets between the four of us when they were there. Down the street, a house sat on the right side of the road. They never interacted with anyone, never came outside, and never left the house. In our group of four, we would dream about what was lurking in that house, and we were always afraid to approach it. This family and house was my Boo Radley House. Two houses down, a little old woman lived alone and planted flowers in her yard. We would visit her from time to time. She was from Belgium originally, and she would always tell us the story of how she got to America. She was my Mrs. Maudie, and I will never forget the times I had with her. My life in elementary school was extremely similar to the life of Jem and Scout and their adventures in Mayberry.

The story of //The Outsiders// by S. E. Hinton is much like that of //To Kill A Mockingbird// by Harper Lee. Throughout //To Kill A Mockingbird//, Scout judges the Radleys' personalities by what the townspeople say and the rumors that the kids spread around town. Towards the end of the book, Boo Radley saves Scout and Jem from Bob Ewell. This interaction changed Scout's views on the Radleys, and she learned not to judge people before she gets to know them. In //The Outsiders//, Ponyboy assumes that all socs are rude and annoying. When the book ends, Ponyboy realizes that greasers and socs are not that different. He learned to accept others much like Scout learned to accept Boo Radley.

In //To Kill A Mockingbird// by Harper Lee, Scout has moments in her life when she visits Mrs. Maudie, and she constantly describes how much of an impact Mrs. Maudie's lessons have on her life's decisions. This is similar to the impact Morrie Schwartz had on Mitch Albom's life. The lessons of Morrie and Mrs. Maudie were lessons on how Mitch and Scout needed to live their lives. The main message in their lessons was to live their lives in the present and not to worry about the future or to get caught up in what the world was doing.

//To Kill A Mockingbird// by Harper Lee truly captures what life was like in the 1900's. Today's community is much different from Scout's society, and our community today has gotten worse than that of Scout's. Scout and Jem feel comfortable walking through Mayberry at night and leaving their door unlocked, but in our society, it is dangerous to be out at night and it is virtually unheard of to leave your door unlocked when you leave or at night. Our world has gotten extremely more dangerous which is the polar opposite of Mayberry at the time of Scout's life. Atticus's lessons to Scout in //To Kill A Mockingbird// by Harper Lee are like the lessons a high school teaches a teenager. Atticus wanted to teach Scout how to act in life and how to be respectful. In a way, a high school teaches a student these same lessons by the rules they enforce and by the classes the student takes. These classes prepare the student for life and how to handle certain situations. Atticus also acts like Scout's English teacher in a way. He teaches her how to read which is an important characteristic in life. High school lessons directed toward the students are not that different from those of Atticus that of which are directed toward Scout.