Parenting Symbolism in "To Kill a Mockingbird"
Did you know that parents have the biggest impact on their children’s life? Parents are the ones that teach their children most of the things they learn in life. The one main theme that stuck out to me in the book we’ve been reading, is parent-child relationships. This is because they provide a very big impact on the story. There is a parenting symbolism in To Kill a Mockingbird book that I want to discuss. The three main parent-child relationships in “To Kill a Mockingbird” are between Atticus and Scout, Dill and his father, and Bob Ewell and his daughter Mayella. In each parent-child relationship in the book there is something to be learned from the situation or relationship.
The first relationship is Atticus and Scout. Instead of calling her dad, dad, Scout calls her dad by his first name(Atticus). Atticus is a great dad that instills good moral guidance into both of his children. Scout goes to atticus for every problem she has including one time when Cecil Jacobs said “The Finch’s daddy defends n****rs”. When he said that Scout beat him up. Scout went home and told Atticus about it and asked him if he defends n****rs. Atticus tells her not to think with her fists, then Scout says that “she could take being a coward for him”. Atticus also tells the kids it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird and to 'climb into the person’s skin and walk around in it”. The valuable lesson that is to be learned from this relationship is that you should always trust your dad unless he is like the next two parent-child relationships.
The next parent-child relationship is a rather odd one between Dill, which is Scout’s best friend and his father. When Dill’s dad got remarried, he neglected and didn’t pay attention to Dill at all and Dill even said they locked him up in chains and was left to die in the basement but, he was exaggerating and that didn’t happen. Since they kept not paying attention to him and neglecting him he escaped and went on a long journey to Maycomb County and hid under Jem’s bed till they found him. Dill spent a lot of time with Jem and Scout from then on including going to the trial together but eventually Dill had to go back to his hometown (Meridian). The lesson learned here is if there is a problem in a relationship instead of running from it and face it head on and confront the person about it.
The last parent-child relationship is Bob Ewell and his daughter, Mayella. In this relationship Mayella lacks the proper father figure that Bob should be. In the trial of Tom Robinson it is revealed that Bob is abusive to her and very sexual. Mayella is in desperate need for someone to care for her and that’s why i think she is crying in court. Bob’s abuse to Mayella also caused an innocent man to die.
In conclusion, a large majority of children in the world look up to their parent. In “To Kill a Mockingbird” Harper Lee gives examples of different effects of different ways of parenting. The relationships between Atticus and Scout, Dill and his father, and Mayella and Bob Ewell show that the lessons learned or not learned, affect the child and can either help them become a good or bad person. These relationships make people think about whether having a parent who teaches bad morals is better than not having a parent at all.
