Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird

“‘You want to grow up to be a lady, don’t you?’ I said not particularly” (Lee). Jean Louise Finch is a tomboy growing up in a world where a girl is expected to become a lady. Submissive housewives and proper ladies were the expectations set for women in the time To Kill A Mockingbird took place. Scout Finch lived in a household that had a strong male influence; aside from Calpurnia, she had no real present example of what she was supposed to become. Because of this, Scout refused to conform to the ways of the rest of the women in Maycomb and the world (Lee 84).

Women in Maycomb, and everywhere else for that matter, were viewed as dolls in every form of the word. Girls were supposed to wear dresses, refrain from cursing, and use manners. They were seen as fragile objects - it was even a crime to cuss near a woman. At one point in the story, it is briefly mentioned that several men were charged with using profane language in the presence of a woman. Scout did not understand the approach that the people in Maycomb had to women and she challenged the roles that people tried to force upon her.

Jean Louise, or Scout, had no intention of becoming ladylike. She was, essentially, a tomboy because she grew up playing with Jem and Dill, and she had no mother. In the games they would play, Jem would assign Scout “girl” roles, in which she would not play a major part because men had the more important roles. Jem had a lot to do with Scout’s defiance to ladylike behavior. In more instances than one, he would insult Scout by calling her a girl, or saying that unless she stopped acting like a girl, she couldn’t play with him and Dill. Along with that aspect, Jem was considered a “gentleman” which is a respectable quality for boy or man. However...

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...en blacks and whites. Though, another part of Lee’s message, I feel, was to provoke the thought that maybe it’s also unfair to treat men and women differently. All humans are humans despite their differences; everyone is equal, no one is better than anyone. A character like Scout helped display these ideas, because she, even as a child, understood that segregation and discrimination were wrong. Her own refusal to gender roles helped shine some light on the inequality that women experience every day of their lives.

Works Cited

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1960. Print.

Shmoop Editorial Team. "Alexandra Hancock in To Kill a Mockingbird." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 29 Apr. 2014.

Ware, Susan. "Women and the Great Depression." The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2014.