Tolog Review: To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
reviewed by Emma Willingham

Prejudice is Not Born

In To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, a young girl navigates her way through her life filled with prejudice and and injustice. Jean Louise Finch, better known as Scout, is this young girl. She is the daughter of one of the kindest men, Atticus Finch. Atticus is a lawyer who always does the right thing and is a progressive thinker. Lee uses Atticus to be the moral rock and gives her readers a foothold into these characters’ lives when he teaches his two children, Scout and her brother Jem and when he defends his clients. Atticus defends Tom Robinson, a black man who was falsely accused of raping a woman, for most of the story. Harper Lee uses this case to show how first impressions can be wrong. 

When I first read this novel Harper Lee broadened my view on how the world used to be. The world used to be filled with so many injustices and so many of them were focused on African-Americans. This insight makes anyone who reads this acknowledge the fact that so many kind-hearted and moral people are hurt because of ignorance and self preservation. Atticus tells his children, ““don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird’” (Lee 119). Lee says this because she wants to portray how these people do nothing wrong but are still being “killed” for it. This book has made me feel so much compassion. I would recommend this book for all those who want to get entranced by the story of good people who finally win a battle against the injustices.