To Kill a Mockingbird Geoshapes

Each character’s personality in the book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is intricately described, therefore giving the reader an image or idea of the kind of person he or she is. A picture of the character is formed in the mind with maybe rough edges but a soft heart on the inside. A character’s personality may be oversimplified by drawing shapes in symbolism, but the shapes may be helpful in perceiving the general extent of the characteristics. With a little help from Lee’s descriptions, I have been able to form images in my mind (and draw them on paper) of the personalities of Scout, Jem, Atticus, Dil, Calpurnia, Boo Radley, and Bob Ewell.

Scout’s shape has a green half-heart bottom, two green finger-like extensions that reach out from the top, one toward Atticus and the other toward Jem, and another green finger-like extension projecting from the side toward everyone else in Maycomb. The green in each of the finger-like extensions and the half-heart bottom represents her youth and innocence which affect her outlook on life. In the center of the shape, a red core represents the love and passion that fill her heart and is the inspiration for her actions and reasoning. Atticus is connected to Scout by the finger-like extension because Scout looks up to him, trusts him, and learns both moral and academic lessons from his actions and words. When Scout narrates, she says, “As Atticus had once advised me to do, I tried to climb into Jem’s skin and walk around in it: if I had gone alone to the Radley Place at two in the morning, my funeral would have been held the next afternoon. So I left Jem alone and tried not to bother him”(57). This shows her respect toward Atticus and demonstrates her real trust in his advice. The other finger-like extension reaching from the top, toward Jem, shows their connection and her natural admiration, love, respect, and trust in her older sibling. “Jem gave a reasonable description of Boo: Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that’s why his hands were bloodstained- if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off. There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time” (13). This shows her innocence, but also her trust in Jem. Anything Jem would tell Scout, she would believe and trust that he would never lie to her. She always looked up to Jem, and, although she sometimes wouldn’t like his attitude toward her, she would always love and respect him. The finger-like extension projecting from the side toward everyone else in Maycomb represents the innocent observing the symptoms of maturity and politics, as well as the morality and principals of those who differentiate from Atticus, such as Aunt Alexandra and Ms. Gates. “Somewhere, I had received the impression that Fine Folks were people who did the best they could with the sense they had, but Aunt Alexandra was of the opinion, obliquely expressed, that the longer a family had been squatting on one patch of land the finer it was” (130). When Scout says this and tries to understand Aunt Alexandra’s opinion, it, again, shows the respect Atticus has planted in her. The respect that manipulates her outlook on everyone and life gives her the want to understand others and their opinion before deciding that whatever she was raised to believe is always right. Scout looks upon the Maycomb citizens with respect, wonder, and openness for understanding the ways of the town that contrast to the ways of Atticus. The smooth half-heart bottom shows that she has a soft heart and wants to understand people and their sometimes contradicting ways. The size of Scout’s shape is rather large because her place in the novel, as narrator, is important because she tells the story and the reader sees everything from her point of view. Her shape is placed in the middle of the bottom because we see everything in Maycomb through her eyes.

Jem’s shape has a blue, round top in which the blue represents his security and loyalty, and the round top represents his soft heart and acceptance. Jem demonstrates the way he freely accepts those different from himself and those with lower reputations: “‘Come on home to dinner with us, Walter,’ he (Jem) said. ‘We’d be glad to have you’”(23). He also demonstrates his security by keeping Scout from continually rubbing Walter’s nose in the dirt and beating him up. Jem shows loyalty to Atticus when he and Scout are walking past Mrs. Dubose and says “‘Don’t pay any attention to her, just hold your head high and be a gentleman’” (101). Atticus had told Jem to be a gentleman, so, out of his loyalty, he not only is a gentleman himself, but also advises Scout to do the same. The bottom half of Jem’s shape is red with wavy edges. The red in this part of the