The Existence of Good and Evil

As a person takes his or her first steps into the outside world, he or she will finally be able to get a small taste of the bad that’s present in life. In the story To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee brings us one of the themes though the eyes of an innocent young girl, Scout, as she begins to discover more about the world she lives in. Coexistence of good and evil is revealed though a case of a falsely accused African American, causing not only Scout but the rest of the children to alter their perspectives towards the community. Through the contrasting ideals and actions of people, the coexistence of both and evil is exposed. The disparity in both Atticus and Bob’s actions helped prove that the world is not a perfect place with only moral inhabitants present. In the novel, Bob and the people of Maycomb are the “bad” in the world, because of their discrimination and prejudice towards African Americans. Instead of being treated like any other human beings, they are looked down upon; they are based on “the evil assumption—that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women…” (232). However, people don’t realize that not everyone is perfect, and not just Negroes commit sins but white people and any other type of race does too. Atticus, though, treats black people with respect, and therefore he represents the “good” in the community. He regards them he would act towards any other human being, because he knows that even if the other person had a different skin color, belief, or race: everyone has equality. Though there is much prejudice in the world, there are those like Atticus who balance it out.
As a result of the children’s exposure to the evil within their community, Jem and Scout come to learn that like is not the innocent place that they have always thought it was. Due to their young age, their immature and pure minds have not discovered the wickedness in people and in life, and