Everyone is Born With Tolerance (To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee)

Tolerance is a characteristic everyone is born with. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Scout describes the old, tired town of Maycomb and the people who live there. Tolerance is affected by first impressions and ideas. Tolerance does matter and everyone has it, but if people aren't tolerant society woulndt work smoothly.

Tolerance affects what people first think of someone the first time they meet. The way People see each other for the first time affects tolerance depending on how strong tolerance is. In the book it says, “You never really understand a person...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (Lee 30).  Atticus explains to the children that they shouldn't judge someone from first sight till they know what they're going though. People judge others based on first sight without even knowing who they are. Additionally, tolerance is based on what people want to see. People will put themselves in a higher position and everyone who is different in anyway mentaly and physically they are wrong. Judge Taylor says, “People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for, and they have the right to subject their children to it…” (Lee 176). People will look and listen for what they want and will block anything else that they don't want. When people only listen and look for what they want, they exclude a lot of people.

In order to be tolerant you really have to examine a person to see what's going through their head. After Bob Ewel spits in Aticus' face he remains calm and tolerant. Aticus explains in the book, “It might be because he knows in his heart that very few people in Maycomb really believed his and Mayella’s yarns”(Lee 254).  Atticus knows that mostly everyone in Maycomb that the Ewel case is nonsense. He is tolerant of Bob because he can see that Bob is seeing that no one is on his side. Additionally, people have to be tolerant to people who aren't tolerant. People will quickly become intolerant to others who aren't tolerant. In the book it says, “Cry about the hell white people give colored folks, without even stopping to think that they’re people, too.”(Lee 205). People can be tolerant all they want but if they are not tolerant to people who aren't tolerant back it can cause problems. If you're tolerant and you to someone who isn't tolerant they are more likely to see your point of view better. To really be tolerant you have to see what other people are thinking and understand.

Tolerance is a characteristic that everyone has. First sight of someone affects tolerance based on what they look like, people should meet people with an open mind. What people's beliefs and ideas also affect tolerance if they do match or if they don't match their own. Everyone is born with tolerance at different levels that can become better or worse as people get older, working on better tolerance is an important goal for society to work on in order to better understand everyone better.