Examples Of Innocence In To Kill A Mockingbird

When one loses their innocence, it changes their outlook on life and causes them to have a sudden realization that the world is not as peaceful and bubbly as it seems. Throughout Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout learns many lessons about the reality from the adults in her life that cause her innocence to fade away as she matures. Scout witnesses prejudice, racism and hypocrisy in her small town of Maycomb, causing the tree of her innocence to lose its leaves and grow back into understanding.
To start, Scout sees numerous prejudiced acts in Maycomb. Prejudice is based on favoritism, unfairness and bias against other groups of people. During Tom Robinson’s trial, Scout learns that the prejudice of white people against coloured people

Hypocrisy is the act in which one does not conform to their own beliefs or rules. Mrs. Gates, Scout’s teacher, talks to her class about Hitler’s wrong doing in persecuting the innocent Jews and says that she “doesn’t believe in persecuting anybody” (329). This leaves Scout puzzled, since earlier she remembers overhearing a conversation in which Mrs. Gates tells Miss Stephanie Crawford, “it’s time somebody taught ’em a lesson, they were gettin‘ way above themselves” (331). Scout cannot understand how someone can say they hate Hitler and defend the Jews he is annihilating and then “turn around and be ugly about folks right at home” (331). Aunt Alexandra’s missionary circle is another example in which Scout is exposed to hypocrisy. The missionary circle consists of the Maycomb County ladies, eating, socializing and discussing J. Grimes Everett’s missionary work in Africa. One of the women in the group, Mrs. Merriweather, releases her hypocrisy while telling Mrs. Farrow, “Gertrude, I tell you there’s nothing more distracting than a sulky darky. Their mouths go down to here. Just ruins your day to have one of ‘em in the kitchen. You know what I said to my Sophy, Gertrude? I said, ’Sophy,‘ I said, ’you simply are not being a Christian today. Jesus Christ never went around grumbling and complaining” (310). After talking about the terrible conditions of the Mruna tribe in Africa and providing financial aid and support to Christianize them, Scout notices how she does not mention doing the same for the town’s coloured people, who are unhappy with the conviction of Tom Robinson and her talk about nearly firing her maid Sophy for being a “sulky darky” (310). Hypocrisy impacts Scout’s innocence as she learns that in the real world, not everyone does as they advise others to