To Kill A Mockingbird Coming Of Age Essay

As people grow in life, they mature and change. In the novel , To Kill a Mockingbird ,by Harper Lee, Scout, the main character, matures as the book continues. Slowly but surely, Scout learns to control her explosive temper, to refrain from fistfights, and to respect Calpurnia, their maid, and to really learn her value to the family. Scout simply changes because she matures, and she also changes because Atticus, her father, asks her to.

“Character development is what I value most as a reader of fiction. If an author can manage to create the sort of characters who feel fully real, who I find myself worrying about while I’m walking through the grocery store aisles a week later, that to me is as close as to perfection as it gets” (J. Courtney Sullivan). In 1960, Harper Lee published the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. It can be rather hard for an author to develop a well built fictional character. Although, Harper Lee does a marvelous job on creating characters. For instance, Scout is a little girl full of energy and is more of a tomboy than most girls. She’s always around her older brother Jem who is respectful, kind, and a gentleman like their father Atticus. Harper Lee did a

Understanding perspective is essential to understanding people. Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird presents this idea in multiple passages of her writing. It can be seen in the rough, unknown troubles that people face despite their wrongful actions. As well as the rumours that are untrue and give complete false impressions of people. Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird uses these topics to illustrate the dangers of judging others before getting to know them.

In Maycomb County, Alabama during the Great Depression, Atticus Finch, a lawyer in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, explains to Scout Finch, his daughter, that "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" (39). At first, Scout does not understand the meaning of his words, but as she matures through the novel, her eyes are unveiled, and she understands what Atticus is trying to tell her. Over time, Jem, too, starts to see the meaning and depth of the statement. Throughout the course of the book, Jem and Scout both learn that one must know and respect people for who they are as individuals, not for what they appear to be.

In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, ties a series of themes that form together and give the reader insight to the struggles of understanding the human condition from the point of view of children as they progress through their coming-of-age era. The narrator, Scout Finch, gradually matures throughout the context in chapter three. Scout acknowledges a lesson which falls along the lines of understanding things from a different point of view given by her father Atticus Finch who teaches her how society in the South would engage in the various situation that occurs in the town of Maycomb. In this novel, Lee uses Scout’s lesson of understanding a person until viewing things from their perspective to expand upon the theme, society

Everyone has their own way of explaining things to understand what is being done or said. In the coming-of age novel “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, the novel is written from a narrator's’ point of view. The narrator, Scout, is the younger sibling of Jem Finch. She is only six years young.Scout like everyone else, has her own way of telling this novel, she has her own way of telling her it. She experiences events that other characters don’t and she gives us an idea of what may be coming up. Ask any characters in the novel to write this story as the narrator, it wouldn’t be the same.

The way and rate that people mature at can be directly attributed to the values and beliefs of the society that surrounds an individual. It is undeniable that society’s perspective on many controversial issues will generally be adopted by the younger generations in a given society. Moreover, the exposure to significant events, coupled with the major influence of family members, can have an enormous impact on how an individual matures. Additionally, family members greatly help each other develop into moral adults by instilling in each other values that will ultimately determine an individual’s character. In Harper Lee’s timeless classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, the constant reiteration of Atticus Finch’s values, in

What is the best way on how an identity can be affected? Well, as people have made many decisions in life without noticing who they affect. Racism is the believe that all members are part of that particular race. In racism people can face discrimination, bullying and all those committed actions can lead up to deaths. People who commit racism affect other’s identity and personality. Personality is what makes a person their own to be themselves, what makes them be different than the rest by their qualities. Racism most greatly impacts on individuals identity because they can be affected by their goals, poor thinking of themselves, and can change behavior.

In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird a major theme is the loss of innocence. Whether from emotional abuse, racial prejudice or learning, Boo, Tom, and Scout all lose their innocence in one sense or another. The prejudice that each character endures leads to their loss. Through the responses of Boo, Tom, and Scout, Harper Lee shows how each character responded differently to their loss of innocence.

The essential question “how does where we grow up affect how we grow up?” is bold in To Kill a Mockingbird and Harper Lee’s answer to it is empathetic yet brutal. Her answer is both astonishing and respectable. To Kill a Mockingbird, a 20th-century novel written by Harper Lee, executes racism, injustice, and stereotypical views. It is put into a position where whites are superior than any other religion along with different skin colors.

Scout’s unique point of view, which is an unbiased first person with two perspectives, is developed in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee through the use of a flashback structure, plot development, and the specific point of view. To start off, the frame story within the flashback structure helps shape the story’s point of view. In this specific frame story, an older Scout is positively looking back on her childhood, with her younger self telling the experiences that led to her brother, Jem, breaking his arm. At the beginning of the novel, she said, “When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident” (Lee 3). This quote specifically takes the readers to a moment where

“Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve ever known. ”(Chuck Palahniuk) Everyone that you will meet will help you on your journey to create your own identity. They show action, expression, and judgement that you then process in conjunction to yourself.

“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”. Discuss this quote from Atticus in relation to 3 characters from the novel.

Throughout the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, many characters develop and mature in unique ways. Boo, who fears talking to others, Aunt Alexandra, who is against people of other races or social classes, and Scout, who is young and is not aware of life’s challenges, constantly suppress their emotions and personality. Their life choices and decisions that they make throughout the book, lead them to be more accepting of others and less prejudice. As the book progresses, Boo, Aunt Alexandra, and Scout learn life lessons and develop into mature adults.

Coming of age is an influential part of many people’s lives. They begin to leave behind their innocent childhood views and develop a more realistic view on the world around them as they step forward into adulthood. (Need to add transition) Many authors have a coming of age theme in their books; specifically, Harper Lee portrays a coming of age theme in his book To Kill A Mockingbird. Through the journeys of their childhoods, Jem and Scout lose their innocence while experiencing their coming of age moment, making them realize how unfair Maycomb really is.