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   bullgatortail Teacher
   High School - 12th Grade

   eNotes Editor

       In her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee has created a group of characters with great depth and emotion. Few, however, change drastically over the course of the novel, in part because of Scout's innocent,predetermined narrative style. The main characters--Atticus, Jem, Scout, Tom--remain strong throughout. Aside from Boo Radley, who goes from the perceived scary monster to a character of great sympathy and gentle nature, perhaps the two characters who change the most are Aunt Alexandra, Atticus's sister, and Mr. Underwood, the newspaper editor.
       Alexandra is treated negatively for most of the novel--she unequivocably disputes Atticus' liberal parenting style--but she shows a sympathetic side as well later, particularly when she diplays her emotions following the death of Tom Robinson. Alexandra's hardness also disappears when she lays out Scout's despised overalls to wear. Mr. Underwood is treated somewhat harshly when he first appears, but he later shows another side when he silently defends Atticus at the jail when the lynch mob appears; and when his editorial following the death of Tom Robinson claimed that "it was a sin to kill cripples," an attack certainly not to go over well with the majority of Maycomb's citizens.

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   Posted by bullgatortail on Sunday November 8, 2009 at 2:23 PM