Atticus Finch - a brief discussion.

   Atticus always tries to be honest to the children he sometimes treats them like adults. This is good but when it comes to explaining things, they don’t always understand so they go to Miss Maudie who gives a better explanation. The children also respect Atticus, they show this by sometimes referring to Atticus as, “sir”.

   Atticus isn’t like a normal father he would to prefer to read a book than to play football with his children. He plays football with scout but doesn’t want to tackle each other because he says he is too old. Scout and Jem get given air rifles for Christmas but Atticus won’t teach them how to shoot. The children get upset about this and say that he isn’t like the other fathers, he doesn’t hunt, smoke, drink or fish. They didn’t think Atticus was good at anything until one day he shoots a mad dog and kills it in one shot. After that Miss Maudie goes on to tell the children about other things that Atticus is good at. She tells them how Atticus was called, “one shot finch”, when he was younger, how he could beat everyone at chequers this side and the other side of the river and that he could play the Jews harp.

   Atticus is a very honourable man, he is a lawyer. Atticus is asked to defend a Negro, Tom Robinson in court and does so. Scout gets picked on at school because of this. Cecil Jacobs talks about Atticus being a “nigger lover”, but he is just trying to make sure that Tom Robinson gets a fair trial.