Post #6

One of the major themes of To Kill a Mockingbird is the face that Atticus is and has been for a long time a single parent. People have commented a lot about how it would have been so much better if Scout and Jem's mother hadn't died. Or how much better their life would have been if Atticus had remarried.

I myself think their life would have been pretty much the same. I don't think they would have changed as people. They probably wouldn't have been as wild as children, and they wouldn't have met Calpurnia. So you might say Scout wouldn't have known how to read. But you have no idea what their mother would have done had she survived. I'm not going to say that their mother dying was a good thing, because death can hardly every be called a blessing.

But, the lives of Scout and Jem could not have turned out much better than they did. They have indepentdent thought processes, strong values, self control. Atticus has done a pretty bang up job with it. The only thing is that maybe they would have had more fun, maybe Mrs. Dubose wouldn't have hounded them all the time if their mother had been around. Scout would have turned out more lady like, and the kids would probably call Atticus "Dad." So that's not exactly something that would make it nessesarily better or worse. But different, definatly.