Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird explores a variety of different prejudices. The term prejudice can be defined as someone forming an opinion about another person that is based purely on predisposed emotions rather than based on "knowledge, thought, or reason" (Random House Dictionary). Early in the novel, Atticus reveals that one reason why people think prejudicedly is because people have an inability to see things from others' perspectives. After Scout gets into trouble on her disappointing first day of school, Atticus instructs Scout that she would get along with people much better if she learns to see things from others' points of view, because doing so eliminates prejudice, as we see in Atticus's famous speech:
First of all, ... if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view-- ... --until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. (Ch. 3)
When we view things from others' perspectives, we use our rational mind rather than our irrational emotions, which is the very opposite of prejudiced thinking. In addition, understanding others' perspectives allows us to feel compassion towards others rather than feel negative judgement.
Atticus's famous speech giving advice on how to avoid prejudiced thinking contains the element of figurative language called a metaphor. Metaphors are created when an author or speaker compares unlike objects with the purpose of expressing a point. In the passage, Atticus compares the ability to "consider things from [a person's] point of view" to the ability to "climb into [a person's] skin and walk around in it." Since Atticus isn't literally speaking of getting into a person's skin, we know this is a metaphor. Atticus uses the metaphor to liken truly understanding others to actually attempting to be the person you are trying to understand, a thought-process that eliminates prejudice.
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