Good versus evil is often seen by many people as the backbone of conflicts and debates throughout history and the present. Many also often assume that one side of a conflict is right and good, and the other side is wrong and evil. But in reality, good and evil most often coexist in the same thing. However, children often cannot see this and view something as either completely right and good or completely wrong and bad. This is shown in the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. In the book, the main character, Scout, is a young girl growing up in the post-Civil War South with her older brother, Jim, and father, Atticus. Throughout the story, as Scout grows up, she encounters many people and events that cause her to question her knowledge of what is right and wrong. Through characterization, diction, and point of view, Harper Lee illustrates to readers how good and evil coexist in everyone every day. To begin with, one of the ways that Harper Lee shows this to readers is through characterization. A good example of this is Mrs. Dubose, Scout's neighbor. Mrs. Dubose is a racist old woman who always insults Atticus, a lawyer, for defending a black man in court. After getting upset at how Mrs. Dubose can be so mean to Atticus, Jim tears up his precious flower bed. As punishment, Mrs. Dubose wants Jim to come read to her every day for a few weeks. When Jim reads to her, after a while she begins to shake, and then Jim and Scout are sent out of the house. After finishing reading to her, a few months later, Mrs. Dubose died. It turns out that Mrs. Dubose was addicted to morphine and Jim's readings helped her overcome her addiction. Atticus then tells Jim that she "had real courage." Jim can't understand this, because she was so... middle of paper...... she can be inside the same person. Because Harper Lee writes using a first-person view, the character's events and thoughts are more personal to the reader, which is helpful when Harper Lee uses this element of writing as a way to show the coexistence of good and evil. Overall, Harper Lee uses the elements of characterization, diction, and point of view to illustrate to readers how good and evil can coexist inside a person. She puts this theme in To Kill a Mockingbird as a message to readers about how good people can do bad things and how good and evil are both part of the human condition and being a person. While this is true, she also uses this as a message to readers, indirectly telling them to use the good that is in themselves, like Atticus or Scout, and to help others when they need it. /To_Kill_a_Mockingbird