How are fathers presented in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird?

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How are fathers presented in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird?

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird there are five fathers shown and they all are very different from each other.  The five different fathers are Atticus, Bob Ewell, Dill’s stepfather, Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Radley. Atticus is Scout and Jem’s father, he is very open minded and is a fair man. Bob Ewell is Mayella’s father and he is very rough and uncaring. Dill’s stepfather doesn’t spend much time with him.

Atticus is a fair and kind character. He doesn’t follow what everyone else believes to be right, he sees things differently. He doesn’t have a problem with black people which rarely in that time did people think that.

Atticus treats his children with respect and he likes them to make their own decisions and respects the decisions they make. “Atticus had two yellow pencils for me…Jem told him what happened” (Page 118, chapter 11), this shows he is secretly the praising the children for making the right decision. He gives the children a lot of respect, he sees them as adults. He wants to slowly give them more responsibility, he does it slyly. A quote which supports this idea is “Not yet son. Do as I tell you. Run now. Take care of Scout you hear?”. He is putting a lot of pressure and responsibility on Jem. He wants Jem to grow up and become more responsible steadily. Throughout the book he gives Jem more and more responsibility, asking him to do the odd thing more and more.

Scout and her father have a close relationship. He meets her half way when Scout has a problem. An example of this is “If you’ll concede the necessity of going to school, we’ll go on reading every night just as we always have. Is it a bargain?” (Chapter 3, page 35). This shows he does respect his children and wants them to be happy.

He wants to teach his children values by telling people they shouldn’t follow what everyone else. Scout asks her dad what a “Nigger lover” is and he says to her “nigger-lover is just one of those terms…ugly term to label somebody” (Page 120, chapter 11). This shows he doesn’t want his children to be like everyone else and have mixed values. Anybody could have said a white person who likes black people but he chose to explain what he feels about the word and teach them good values.  

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Like I said before about Atticus respecting his children, the children respect Atticus in the same way.  Jem especially has a lot of respect for Atticus, a quote supporting this is “I- it’s like this… keep it that way” (Chapter 6, page 62). This shows Jem doesn’t want to lose his fathers respect. It shows they have a close relationship.

Atticus teaches his children its ok to be different. Scout asks her dad if he is a nigger lover and he says “I certainly am. I do my best to love everybody…it doesn’t hurt you” (Page 120, chapter 11). ...

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