Saturday, January 30, 2010

To Kill A Mockingbird 2

In my other assignments for class I've discovered something about my favorite character. Well, actually I've discovered that even though she isn't my favorite character she is probably one of the characters I most admire and think I could learn a lot from. You always hear about the crotchety old lady next door. I don't think I've ever understood that because it isn't in my experience. Both of my grandmas are pretty active and they don't seem to be like Mrs. Dubose at all. I had a great-grandmother, but she was very kind and sweet. But I've learned the most from Mrs. Dubose, not only in the areas of courage, but also in the area of 'do not judge other people'. We never know what people are going through. We don't know them. As Scout and Jem find out there is a lot more to that old mean lady than meets the eye. There is always more to a person than meets the eye. One of the reasons this book is so amazing is because that lesson is taught from so many different angles. From Atticus who says, 'walk in someone's shoes to understand them' to the old lady who has an addiction that creates her as a person and ending that addiction. This is something that defines a great book. The quality of allowing ourselves to experience something we can't and then letting us learn from it.

2 comments:

Shanna Blythe said...

Anna Marie,
It's been FOREVER since I've read the book. I have one student who is reading it right now, but I think I'm going to have to pick it up and re-read it. Nice post!

Lisa Rampton Halverson said...

You are the first to write about Mrs. Dubose for this assignment, and I really appreciated what you had to say. Yes, Harper Lee does a great job of teaching a lesson from various angles, and Mrs. Dubose, even though she only occupies 2 chapters, really helps do this.

Great blog post!