Archetypes In To Kill A Mockingbird

The book To Kill a Mockingbird is set in the town of Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression. Scout, Jem and Atticus are the main characters and Atticus is their father. Atticus who is a lawyer had to defend a black man for a crime that he did not commit. The white people in town believed that a black man, Tom Robinson, raped a white girl. At the trial, Scout and Jem are exposed to racism and stereotypes and in the end Tom Robinson is found guilty. In the book, Atticus says to Scout “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”(Harper Lee,30).

In Jabari Asim article, he criticized To Kill a Mockingbird as not portraying racial problems fairly. He asserted that Lee’s book was written to soothe the guilt of racism of whites due to the exemplary actions of Atticus Finch while black people are portrayed as archetypes. Asim
The book was written during the time of turmoil of the Civil Rights Movement and School Desegregation. At the time it was written, To Kill a Mockingbird opened the minds of white people in that period to be like Atticus Finch and do the right thing. It made pivotal impressions on the young readers back then. The book influenced them and they help changed the world. The book helped young people to get a grip on what was right and wrong and that the world was not always
It teaches the readers to do the right thing even when they are faced with fierce oppositions. It demonstrated that everyone is equally worth and one should not be judged by the color of their skin. Just like when Atticus said, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”(Harper