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Tolerance is the freedom from bigotry or prejudice. In other words, tolerance is accepting people for who they are and not disliking someone for who you think they are. Tolerance is important today because if we didn’t have tolerance everyone wouldn’t accept each other for who they are and we would probably be a racist country. In the book, “To Kill a Mockingbird” the author Harper Lee uses many characters to show the theme tolerance. For example the author uses Scout, Mrs. Dubose, and Atticus to show the theme of tolerance.

The author uses Scout as an unreliable narrator to show us through the eyes of a child. Scout is a young girl who doesn’t really see things the way adults do. She doesn’t really understand things that are happening because she is still young and learning. For example, Scout knows that Mr. Cunningham is poor and she accepts him for who he is, even though he pays her father back with nuts. “Because that’s the only way he can pay me. He has no money.”(pg.21) That is an example of tolerance because even though Mr. Cunningham’s son is poor and different, Scout still invites him to come to her house for dinner. Scout is showing tolerance by accepting Mr. Cunningham’s son to play and eat dinner with her, even though she knows that she is poorer than her and different. Another example is when Scout walked into a situation that she had no clue what was going on, “Hey Mr. Cunningham…Don’t you remember me?” (153). She didn’t understand why the crowd was there. Jem and all the others understood but because of Scout's age, she just stayed there like it was a neighborhood picnic. She was too young to understand what was happing.

The author uses Mrs. Dubose as well, to show the theme of tolerance. She is a mean old lady that had cancer for many years. Everyone understood the reason she was always mean and grumpy. She had cancer for many years and to take away all the pain, she started doing morphine. She soon became a morphine addict. One day Scout was walking by Mrs. Dubose's house and saw her sitting on her porch. Scout said “Hey, Mrs. Dubose.”, but for some reason Mrs. Dubose got really offended by it and told her...“Don’t you say hey to me you ugly girl!” (99). Every one had to tolerate her being a morphine addict and being so rude, and she had to tolerate everyone else being so rude to her.

The author also uses Atticus to show the theme of tolerance. Atticus is the father of Scout and Jem Finch. Atticus always looked at Mrs. Dubose as his hero. Even though she is older and weaker than him, he still sees her as his hero. He is a lawyer who doesn’t care about what anyone says about him. A lot of people around town didn’t like him because he stood up for the black people. “He’s nothing but a nigger lover.” (pg 83) Atticus stood up for a black people because he wanted to show people what was right. He did not care if other people said that black people are just slaves, who cares about them; he stood up for what he thought was right. He had to tolerate all the people that didn’t like his decision about the court session. Even though he did not win he still fought for his beliefs and got much respect from black people.

Tolerance is very important to our society. To be tolerant is to not be prejudice and accept people for who they are. Are country will be will be a disaster if we didn't have tolerance. Most people today are tolerant and accept people for who they are, rich or poor, ugly or beautiful, black or white. In the novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" the author Harper Lee uses many characters to show the theme tolerance. She uses Scout especially to show the theme tolerance, using her as an unreliable narrator. Also she uses the old lady Mrs. Dubose and Scout's dad Atticus to show the theme tolerance.