“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
Atticus offers this moral advice to Scout after she expresses frustration with her teacher and first day of school. Here, he urges Scout to avoid making judgments about others until she attempts to examine things from their distinctive perspective. Atticus reflects his own virtuous principles and morality with these words, all the while packaging them in simple, digestible terms for Scout (“climb inside of his skin and walk around it”). This conversation catalyzes one of the film’s critical themes: the importance of empathy, which enables a more profound understanding of humanity. From this point forward, Scout slowly begins to mature and treat others with more sympathy.
"Miss Jean Louise, stand up, your father’s passin'."
Reverend Sykes encourages Scout to stand up with the black audience in the balcony after hearing the verdict of Tom’s trial. These words and actions show respect and reverence for Atticus, who failed to win the case but courageously defended Tom and challenged the townspeople's prejudices all the same. After hearing these words, Scout becomes aware of the integrity of her father’s work, and she begins to broaden her perspective on what Atticus means to the community.
"Now gentlemen, in this country, our courts are the great levelers. In our courts, all men are created equal. I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and of our jury system. That's no ideal to me. That is a living, working reality. Now I am confident that you gentlemen will review—without passion—the evidence that you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this man to his family. In the name of God, do your duty. In the name of God, believe Tom Robinson."
Atticus makes this eloquent, dignified speech during his final appeal to the jury to acquit Tom Robinson. Here, Atticus reflects his hopes for the integrity and moral courage of the jury and the American court system. He humbly asks the jury to locate their own dignity and rationally decide the verdict with reason and evidence while casting their personal prejudices aside. Atticus’s use of pathos and ethos in this quote are powerful, but ultimately not persuasive enough for the jury to truly “believe Tom Robinson” and make their unbiased judgment with honor and justice. Despite the arduous deliberation period, the jury’s biased judgment counteracts Atticus’s words and shows the discrimination permitted in the justice system.
"There’s a lot of ugly things in this world, son. I wish I could keep ‘em all away from you. That’s never possible."
After a disillusioned Jem comes into contact with evil (as manifested in the hateful ignorance of Mr. Ewell), his belief in the essential goodness of humanity is contested and damaged. Atticus offers these words to Jem not only to explain Ewell’s behavior, but also to teach Jem that as much as Atticus wants to protect his cherished children from the general unfairness and injustices of the world, he cannot; they must grow up and face the world on their own. Atticus’s words acknowledge Jem’s loss of innocence—a critical theme of the film—as his childish, idyllic perception of mankind becomes more mature and grounded in reality.
"I remember when my daddy gave me that gun. He told me that I should never point it at anything in the house; and that he'd rather I'd shoot at tin cans in the backyard. But he said that sooner or later he supposed the temptation to go after birds would be too much, and that I could shoot all the blue jays I wanted—if I could hit 'em; but to remember it was a sin to kill a mockingbird...mockingbirds don't do anything but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat people's gardens, don't nest in the corncrib, they don't do one thing but just sing their hearts out for us.
Here, Atticus explains how he was permitted to shoot birds—except for mockingbirds—as a young boy. Unlike most birds, mockingbirds aren’t a nuisance; they are simply pure creatures that make music for people to enjoy. Aside from being the source of the movie’s (and novel’s) title, this quote introduces one of the most important symbols of the book: the “mockingbird,” or fundamentally decent, innocent people destroyed by corruption and evil. Like mockingbirds, Arthur/"Boo" has never harmed anyone; his development has been damaged by an abusive father, but he nonetheless remains a force of good, as well as Scout and Jem’s guardian angel. Tom is the film’s other symbolic mockingbird, as he is a honest, hardworking person whose life is destroyed by Maycomb’s unrelenting racism and hatred.
Tom: “I felt right sorry for her. She seemed…”
Mr. Gilmer: “You felt sorry for her? A white woman? You felt sorry for her?”
These words are exchanged during Tom’s cross-examination with Mr. Gilmer. Tom makes the somewhat naive mistake of expressing his sympathy for Mayella, a lonely, impoverished, and abused woman. Mr. Gilmer practically glees with delight when responding to Tom’s compassion. He knows the statement will generate resentment among the jury and the townspeople, who find it unacceptable for a black man to feel sorry for a white woman, due to the established, socially unequal, yet permanent social hierarchy in Maycomb. Considered to be second-class citizens, black people rest below all whites (even the Ewells) in this social hierarchy; thus, by taking pity on Mayella—even if she is deserving of it—Tom transgresses the boundaries of acceptable behavior for black Americans.
"Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough."
As the young Scout lingers for a few moments on the porch of the Radley household, the older version of Scout chimes in with this quote over voice-over. The quote illustrates how Scout has significantly matured over the film. In the beginning, she was terrified every time she passed the house. After receiving the trinkets and being saved from Arthur, she adjusts her perspective and eventually views him as an equal. As she stands on the porch, she imagines what Boo has seen over the years from his point of view, thereby adhering to Atticus’s moral lesson that “you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.”
"The state has not produced one iota of medical evidence that the crime Tom Robinson is charged with ever took place. It has relied instead upon the testimony of two witnesses whose evidence has not only been called into serious question on cross-examination, but has been flatly contradicted by the defendant. The defendant is not guilty, but somebody in this courtroom is."
Atticus begins his masterful closing argument with these words. Here, he politely refutes the Ewell testimonies and focuses his attention on the facts and evidence of the case. His words are convincing, and although the jury ultimately dismisses his speech and decide to act on their own prejudices and racism, Atticus necessarily exposes the fundamental contradictions and absurdity of the case, which evokes the themes of the corruption of the American court system in turn.
Scout: “Mr. Tate was right.”
Atticus: “What do you mean?”
Scout: “Well, it would be sort of like shooting a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?”
After Sheriff Tate decides to bend the law to protect Arthur/“Boo” from public prosecution, this exchange is spoken between Scout and Atticus. By possessing the moral and intellectual capacity to symbolically compare the innocence of Arthur to a mockingbird, Scout’s words demonstrate her newfound maturity. She acknowledges that Arthur is an innocent who has never meant to inflict any harm on anyone—just like a mockingbird. This quote exemplifies how Scout’s perspective of Arthur has shifted. She no longer views Arthur as a monster; she now views him as a human being and understands that his arrest would equate to the killing of a mockingbird: sinful, purposeless, and cruel.
"I don’t know if this will help, but I want to say this to you. There are some men in this world who are born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father's one of them.”
Miss Maudie says these words to Jem, who is disillusioned by the verdict in the Tom Robinson case. By implying that Atticus was “born” to be an attorney defending the public good—one of “our unpleasant jobs”—she comfortingly lets Jem know that even though his father lost the case, he nonetheless remains an excellent lawyer and exemplar of justice within the American court system. Atticus displays extreme courage for choosing to defend Tom in a hopeless case, and his closing statements force the townspeople re-examine their perceptions of race. The importance of Atticus’s work transcends the verdict of Tom’s case, and Miss Maudie wants to communicate this to Jem. Struggling to accept to the injustice of the case, Jem dejectedly replies, “Oh, well.”
