Gail Sheehy once said, “If we don’t change, we don’t grow up. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.” Losing something close to us is the key to growing up, and Scout, the protagonist in To Kill A Mockingbird, is one of those characters. Scout and several other characters in the novel lose their innocence as they begin to see the prejudice and racism of the 1930’s South. All of these characters were innocent and unaware of what Maycomb was, and their innocence was taken away from them because of that. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee relates the theme of growing up and loss of innocence. One of the ways Harper Lee relates to the theme is through mood and tone. Harper Lee wrote the book divided into two parts: Part One …show more content…
This is similar to how kids and even small pets get into small things out of curiosity, things that are often kept away from them. Scout, Jem, and Dill were acting like normal kids and they didn’t worry about racism or any of the events that was going on in the town. Scout goes around with her brother, Jem, and her neighbor Dill as they figure out more about Boo Radley. Overall the mood is very exciting and vivid in Part 1 of To Kill A Mockingbird. Harper Lee shows the change in growing up in Part 2 of To Kill A Mockingbird. In Part 2, the chapters are written darker and are more intense than Part 1. During these chapters Scout and Jem have to deal with the racism in town of Maycomb as the Tom Robinson case begins. One of the ways Harper Lee shows the intensity of Part 2 is in the scene where the mob shows up at the courthouse. “...I glanced around and discovered that these men were strangers. They were not the people I saw last night ...I had leaped triumphantly into a ring of people I have never seen before” (Lee 152). This shows that Scout didn’t know what she was getting into, she didn’t know that the mob was there to kill Tom Robinson. The way Scout jumped into the stand out with the mob and didn’t know anything about what was happening is similar to children when they try to join into adult conversations. The mood of the whole situation here is suspenseful and almost frightening because
As children grow up, they open their eyes to the harsh truths in the world around them that they once did not understand or question. This is experienced by the main characters of Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The story is of a girl called Scout and her older brother, Jem, who go through the trials of growing up in the fictional small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930s. Racism is rampant in the mindset of the townspeople, shown when the children’s lawyer father, Atticus, takes the case of an obviously innocent African-American man and they convict him in their hearts before the trial even starts. Through this all, we can see the theme of loss of innocence in the children. Lee uses characterization to portray
Marcus Zwingle Megan LoBello English 1 AV 2 April 2024. When people mature, they get a better understanding of the world and learn to be empathetic to others. The book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a story about a girl named Scout Finch experiencing many serious situations at a young age during the Great Depression in the early 1930s. Scout faces many difficult situations in the book, and when she is younger she doesn’t know how to properly react and she tends to resort to physical violence instead of finding another solution. In Harper Lee's book To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout is immature but later on she starts to show maturity as she gets older and goes through more experiences.
They spend their free time pondering why Boo Radley stays indoors. Many rumors are spread about him, some of which are things such as, “As Mr. Radley passed by, Boo drove the scissors into his parent’s leg, pulled them out, wiped them on his pants, and resumed his activities” (Lee 12). These types of rumors spread all of the time. Scout and Jem hear them and their imaginations run wild, and sometimes this would cause them to want to sneak up to the house and try to get Boo's attention. This continued throughout the whole beginning of the story.
In the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, the theme of innocence and growing up is central to the book. Lee conveys innocence as naïvety, as a narrow or restricted world view that expands as one grows older. Throughout the book, we see this theme develop alongside Scout, Jem, and Dill, who, as time goes on, transition from blindly accepting everything they experience from life in Maycomb, to being able to know what is right and wrong when they see it.
Growing up is unavoidable, though it sometime takes a push to get there. Through out Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, the protagonist Scout, and her older brother Jem are depicted as young immature children, who mature through out the story. To Kill a Mockingbird shows how children grow up through events present in ones local society. This is done in To Kill a Mockingbird , through the time spent with Ms. Dubose, at the Tom Robinson trail, and through the children's encounter with Boo Radley and Bob Erwell.
Therefore the author implies that Scout can only grow from this point. This also allows Scout to move with the plot, because the fire is the turning point of the novel. It separates the childish games of Scout, Jem, and Dill, and their Boo Radley phase from the very adult world of racism and the Tom Robinson trial. By showing Scout at her climax, and connecting it to the turning point of the novel, Lee can show the reader a more noticeable change in her character. She also stresses Scout’s moments of bluntness, because it is the contrast between her mature and immature instances that make her mature moments more notable. For example, when Scout sees Boo Radley for the first time, she shows maturity beyond her years. The ordeal was explained by Scout as, “Our neighbor’s image blurred with my sudden tears. ‘Hey Boo’ I said” (Lee 362). The way Scout first reacts by saying hi so calmly shows her maturity. She handles the situation so profoundly by instantly treating him like an equal, something that is difficult even for the adults in Maycomb. This helps out the moral of gradual maturity from innocence because it was her original immaturity that got her so involved with Boo Radley in the first place. Had she not been so obsessed with him, the direct understanding with him would not be possible. Therefore, this proves that Scout’s childhood habits ironically push her closer to growing up. As childhood innocence
In the novel “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee is about a girl named Scout telling the story of how her older brother Jem broke his arm. Scout went from innocent to experiencing hate, racism, and threat by other people. As she explains how it all happened, she tends to be in difficult situations with her brother Jem and experienced a few threats by her classmates and adults. Her father; Atticus, was a lawyer who was criticized by the entire white race because he defended a black man in court. Scout was a bright child who knew how to read at a young age and tend to understand all things she's been taught, but there were some things she did not fully understand until she had to experience them.
Growing Up in To Kill A Mockingbird Growing up is different for everyone and has a complicated way of changing a personality. As one transitions from infancy on, innocence and ignorance leave and one discovers and learns from the real world. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee shows that individuals grow up because they discover how to truly understand people and their messages. When Scout—the main character of To Kill a Mockingbird— was young, she was reckless and often picked fights with others on the smallest of things. She did it so much that her father, Atticus, told her to try to just walk away from anyone who tried to provoke her.
Maturity often goes hand in hand with change. Whether it is just growing up or learning from one’s mistakes, change brings new perspective that helps people for the better. The main characters in Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird go through a series of such changes throughout the story such as losing their innocence, growing up, and coming to the realization of their town’s unfair prejudices. The transition from being innocent and oblivious to more mature and aware is extremely evident in several identities in the novel. The novel approaches the question of whether or not the people of Maycomb need some change and new perspective by dramatizing Scout, Jem, and Dill’s transition from a perspective of childhood innocence.
In the Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird there are many events that require Jem and Scout to act more mature and grown up. One of the main events is when a black man named Tom Robinson is wrongfully accused of rape, but loses the case because of Maycomb’s prejudice people. This shows them the harsh reality of Maycomb and what people in their town are really like. Throughout the book these events force Jem and Scout to mature and become smarter in what they say and do. They learn these lessons of maturity while witnessing or being a victim in many cruel events in the unpleasant town of
Everyone, accept it or not, has to grow up and, thus lose the innocence they once possessed. The process of childhood to adulthood has many factors that take effect on the person they will grow up to become. For instance, the environment that a person grows in has an enormous effect on their development . Throughout the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout’s curiosity and innocence is challenged by Maycomb’s standards for race and gender, but with her father’s guidance results in her maturing; losing her innocence, while retaining hope. Taking place in the mid 1930’s Maycomb has racism among the people which greatly affect Scout.
In the book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, as the narrator, Scout gets older over the course of three summers, she learns a lot. As Scout becomes more mature, she loses some of her innocence, she has a better understanding of life, racism, prejudice, and along the way she even picks up some manners from her aunt Alexandria. When people grow up, they learn more about love, society, and how to see from other people's point of view.
In the beginning of the book Scout and Jem used to try and make their neighbor Boo Radley leave his house. On page 41 it says “They were going to try to get a note to Boo Radley!! They were going to put the note on the end of a fishing pole and stick it through the shutters.” This shows that in part they were extremely immature. They let their curiosity get the best of them.
Growing up is a journey everyone has to traverse in their life. For the majority of people, it is a difficult but greatly defining part in our lives. Eventually, adolescents must leave the cozy nest of childhood and face the world for what it is. An example of this kind of experience is in Harper Lee’s two novels, To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman. Both stories center around the life of Jean Louise Finch (commonly called Scout). In To Kill a Mockingbird six-year-old Scout faces the themes of racism, rape, and morality. Having to confront these matters at such a young age forces Scout to grow up, especially when her father stands in the middle of these controversies. By the end of the story, Scout
In the novel, to kill a mockingbird, Harper Lee presents three very distinct types of innocence that are portrayed by different characters throughout the novel. A good part in this story’s brilliance is that Harper Lee has managed to use the innocence of a young girl to her advantage. She does this by telling the whole story from a child’s point-of-view. By having an innocent little girl make racial remarks and regard people of color in a way consistent with the community, Lee provides the reader with an objective view of the situation. As a child, Scout can make observations that an adult would often avoid. In addition, readers are also likely to be forgiving of a child’s perception, whereas they would find an adult who makes these