Atticus’s many lessons in To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, aid his children in growing and maturing as the years go by. One such lesson concerns truth and its connection with hypocrisy as well as hope. Because she is beginning to lose her innocence as she ages and grows wiser, a viewer like Scout may become cynical when she witnesses such a deception. Truth cannot be trusted if a person does not portray what he preaches.

During Scout’s earlier years, as well as later, Atticus shows, in his actions as well as words, how important it is to be truthful in order to bring about change and so things are not misinterpreted. An excellent example is when they are staying at Jack Finch’s house for Christmas; Atticus knows that Scout is listening in to his and Uncle Jack’s conversation. He seizes the opportunity to teach her without speaking directly to her. Atticus tells Jack, " . . . The jury couldn’t possibly be expected to take Tom Robinson’s word against the Ewells’ . . . Before I’m through, I intend to jar the jury a bit . . . You know what’s going to happen as well as I do, Jack, and I hope and pray I can get Jem and Scout through it without bitterness . . . " (88) Although Atticus knows that winning the case is hopeless, he still defends Tom Robinson; not because he is appointed by the court to do so but because he knows that every time someone adequately defends a case like this, it can bring a small bit of change until justice might finally occur. He hopes that perhaps by hearing this, Scout can begin to understand why he puts up with all of the townspeople’s talk about him going on behind his back. Another example occurs earlier in the conversation; Jack tells Atticus that when Scout asked him what a whore-lady is, he avoided answering by telling her a story. After hearing this, Atticus replies, "When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness’ sake. But don’t make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles ’em." (87) Atticus is teaching Scout as well as Jack that avoiding the truth merely causes more confusion and can twist the real story. This is the case of Boo Radley and all of the superstitions surrounding him. Because few had ever told Scout and Jem anything about his story, they had to find scraps of information about him wherever they could in order to satisfy their hunger for knowledge. Atticus accurately depicts the importance of truth to his children in many different ways by continuing to defend Tom Robinson despite the known outcome and never directly lying or avoiding the truth to his children.

Scout applies everything she has learned about truth when she tells what happened to Jem and her on the way home from the carnival. She is careful to include every detail and tell the sheriff when she doesn’t know precisely what happened, such as when she says, "Somebody was staggerin’ around and pantin’ and–coughing fit to die. I thought it was Jem at first, but it didn’t sound like him, so I went lookin’ for Jem on the ground. I thought Atticus had come to help and had got wore out–". (270) Although she knows then while she is telling her story that it was not Atticus, she did not know that when it happened. She knows that every single point in her tale has its own influence in discovering what had exactly occurred. Later, Scout takes Boo upstairs to Jem’s bedroom to say a goodnight to him and then walks Boo home. (277, 278) She finally knows that Mr. Arthur Radley is not the mysterious monster she had imagined him to be but merely a mistreated person trying to help. By not harassing him with all of the questions she longs to inquire, she shows that she does not need to know any more than what she did, for Arthur deserves to get what he longs for–privacy and protection from the outside world. Knowing and trying to discover the truth helped Scout in these situations.

Truth is one of the themes of To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus taught Scout and Jem the importance of it. Truth cannot be trusted if a person does not portray what he preaches. The reader learns of its value by seeing how they use the lessons taught to them by their father. Truth is solid and won’t change, but it can help to change prejudice and hate.