Themes are important in the development of novels. One such novel which uses themes to develop a particular character is, "To Kill a Mockingbird," by Harper Lee. The character of Atticus Finch is developed in two key scenes in the novel. They raise the reader's opinion of him from being an old lawyer with nothing but a desk-job, to a brave and courageous father who is very well respected in his hometown of Maycomb.
             The novel is set in the fictional county of Maycomb, Alabama on around the 1930's. During the decade that followed, there was a great shortage of jobs and a lot of poverty in the south, therefore many blacks moved to the north for work.
             Jean-Louise Finch, or "Scout" as she is known throughout the story, narrates the novel. She is the youngest of a family of three: her brother – Jeremy and her father, a lawyer – Atticus Finch. They also have a maid, Calpurnia, or "Cal," who came every day as Jem and Scout's mother had died when they were younger.
             The main plot of the novel deals with a court case, of which Atticus is representing Tom Robinson; a black man accused of raping Mayella Ewell; a white girl from a poor family. As prejudice rages strongly in the 1930's, both racial and class-conscious, some people in Maycomb refer to Atticus as being a "nigger-lover" for representing Tom. Both the reader and Atticus' children are unaware of what Atticus is really like inside, and so Harper Lee has created two specific scenes where the reader and the children become more aware of the true Atticus Finch.
             The first of the two incidents in the novel deals with the shooting of a mad dog.
             At the beginning of this chapter, Harper Lee tells us how Scout sees her father, she says:
             "Atticus was feeble: he was nearly fifty,"
             "Our father didn't do anything, he worked in an office, not in a drug store. Atticus did not even drive a du...