P1+JNajera

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Najera, Jesus Period 1 11-29-05

Tolerance in fiction and Reality What is tolerance? In all the dictionaries of the world have many different definitions, well in my dictionary I have only one and it will always stay the same. Tolerance is accepting people for who they are and there beliefs, for who they are and what they are. In this story TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD the author gives us many examples of tolerance. Also in his story he has a narrator well more of a unreliable narrator. It is a little girl named Scout, she is unreliable because from her eyes she understands things more differently than the an adult would. This novel has three very different characters that they all display tolerance in the events that happen in this book. Scout is a little girl who is sort of acts more like a boy than a girl. She shows tolerance when she is walking by Mrs.Debouses house and Mrs.Debouse starts calling her names. Now a normal child would of cried or would have called herbad stuff bad stuff back Scout well she didn’t do that she just simply ignored her and just kept going on with her business. Scout could of done something or say some thing back, but she just walked on and took it. Mrs. Debouse is an elderly woman that is being slowly eaten away by a disease. She has to take all this different medication and she also has to deal with the pain. One day she was talking bad about Atticus defending Tom ( Black Man ). Jem over heard this and later went back to destroy her flowers. His punishment was to go to Mrs.Debouses house and read to her for 2 hours. In time Jem found out that Mrs. Debouse wasn’t a mean old lady she was kind and thoughtful. Before she died she gave Jem a flower from her garden. Then she died peacefully. She had to deal with the fact she was dying slowly and that the pain was unbearable but in the end all went well. My favorite character in this story is Atticus. He is the father of both Scout and Jem, he is also a lawyer. His case is about a black man that “raped” a 15 year old white girl. Atticus has to put up with the harassment. The father of the “victim” was drunk and found Atticus in the defendants house. He called him names and then Spit at his face, what did Atticus do nothing he just gave him a look and drove away. I expected him to react, like punch him in the mouth or something. Atticus is an educated man if he can tolerate that kind of behavior because if he didn’t he would have been in more trouble than he really is in. Tolerance is important in reality, because if we didn’t have tolerance we would be in wars and in fights amongst our selves. Even if we don’t agree with people, we can all still accept them for who they are and they will never change because we say so. How would you feel if people wouldn’t accept you for who the are? What would you do if your parents didn’t like the way you dress. Let them tolerate it because your tolerating them. No matter what we all have to tolerate something in our lives even if we don’t like it.