Little Scout Finch is not the same young girl she was twenty-eight months ago. As she and the rest of Maycomb County come across the injustice and evildoings of life, she cannot help but see in a different perspective. Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird displays how experiencing the hardships of reality while growing up leads to a loss of innocence as shown through Scout’s characterization, her continuous learning, and the imagery of the town as seen through Boo Radley’s eyes.
Jean Louise (Scout), the child protagonist, appears solely innocent. Many describe her as one of the mockingbirds metaphorically displayed in the book. The character parades her impulsivity, naivety, and immaturity. In spite of that, Scout gradually changes throughout the course of the novel. An instance is school, a significant role in childhood, especially when Scout
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Boo Radley, a supposed maniac who others dislike and fear, walks back home with Jean Louise. Imagining her neighbor’s view for once, “the children [come] closer” (Lee 374). At this point in time, her regrets of past actions such as bothering the innocent become visible to her eyes. The child now makes sense of her fellow neighbors and their vast differences from each other for she “…stand[s] in his shoes…” (Lee 374). Despite the longer she remains on the porch silently, the more she realizes the misery and the loneliness that is Boo’s life – how he never has that innocence to begin with.
Scout’s young traits, life in Maycomb, and new perception proves how humans lose their purity while they grow up in a world of evil as shown in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. This story’s discovery illustrates an eye-opener to those who lose hope in humanity. Although shown through the claims, Scout finally acknowledges while growing up how heroes balance villains, love balances loss, and goodness forever balances
The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is set in Alabama in the 1930s, and concerns itself primarily with the interrelated themes of prejudice and empathy. These themes are explored as the story follows Scout Finch as she learns lessons in empathy, ultimately rejecting prejudice. While all characters in Lee’s novel learn from their experiences, not all are able to grow in the same manner as Scout. The idea of a positive role model, typified by the character of Atticus Finch, and the ramifications of its absence, is a concept that Lee places much emphasis on. The isolated setting is also pivotal in the development of characters. Lee uses the contrast between characters that learn lessons in empathy and compassion, and characters that cling to the ideals of a small town, to explore factors that nurture or diminish prejudice.
Childhood is a continuous time of learning, and of seeing mistakes and using them to change your perspectives. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee illustrates how two children learn from people and their actions to respect everyone no matter what they might look like on the outside. To Kill A Mockingbird tells a story about two young kids named Scout and her older brother Jem Finch growing up in their small, racist town of Maycomb, Alabama. As the years go by they learn how their town and a lot of the people in it aren’t as perfect as they may have seemed before. When Jem and Scout’s father Atticus defends a black man in court, the town’s imperfections begin to show. A sour, little man named Bob Ewell even tries to kill Jem and Scout all because of the help Atticus gave to the black man named Tom Robinson. Throughout the novel, Harper Lee illustrates the central theme that it is wrong to judge someone by their appearance on the outside, or belittle someone because they are different.
Scout Finch is the main character of To Kill A Mockingbird. Throughout the story, Scout will learn courage and kindness, and doing what is right. When the book begins, Scout is only 6 years old, and still has a lot to learn. She is a kind person and wants to make Atticus proud, but she has a lot of growing up to do.
Walt Whitman’s 1859 poem “Out of the Cradle Rocking Endlessly” depicts the mockingbird as a symbol of innocence that chants or sings of fond memories from the past. By contrast, Harper Lee’s famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960, written almost a century after Whitman’s poem, portrays the mockingbird as innocent but as a fragile creature with horrific memories – memories of discrimination, isolation, and violence. Harper Lee wrote her novel, which is rooted in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, in the Deep South, during a time of segregation and discrimination, social issues which can be seen not only in the novel but were witnessed by Harper Lee in her own life. While Lee does insert bits and pieces of her own life into the novel, this fictional story is told by the character Jean Louise Finch, better known as “Scout.” She tells a horrific yet heroic story about a time in the 1930’s from a childhood perspective. The title of Lee’s book is not at first as apparent as it would seem. In fact, the only literal reference to the mockingbird appears only once in the novel. The reader, then, must probe deeply into the characters and events of the book to uncover the significance of the mockingbird. After seeing the treatment and the unyielding courage of Tom Robinson, Boo Radley, and Atticus Finch, the reader can easily identify these three as mockingbirds.
Firstly, Scout, also known as Jean Louise finch is able to overcome the obstacles in her way to see the goodness in life because the evils demonstrated numerous times in the novel doesn’t destroy her innocence. As the novel progresses thro...
Boo Radley is the next door neighbor of the Finch’s. He is an outsider of the community, because he does not leave the house. He got in some trouble as a teenager, so his father locked him up inside the house. After his father died, his brother moved in with him. While Boo was locked up inside is house, the people of Maycomb County made up stories about him. The legend of Boo Radley was well-known to the people of Maycomb. Jem describes Boo, “Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that’s why his hands were bloodstained—if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off. There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time.” (Lee ). Boo is an innocent character because all he does stay inside his own house, and does not bother anybody. Yet the entire town believes that he could be a murderer. Harper Lee is showing that if you do not fit into southern society, they will make you into an outsider and a bad legend. Another example of Boo Radley being an innocent character is when he gives a blanket to Scout. Miss Maudie Atkinson, one of the Finch’s neighbors, had a house fire. Atticus (Scout and Jem’s father) woke up the kids and made them go outside, in case the fire spread to their house. While Scout was not looking someone gave her a blanket, “‘Someday, maybe, Scout can thank him for covering her up.’ ‘Thank who?’ I asked. ‘Boo Radley. You were so busy looking at the fire you didn’t know it when he put the blanket around you.’”(Lee ). Boo Radley is an innocent character because he helped warm up Scout in the cold, yet Scout was still scared that Boo had been near here. Harper Lee is showing us that Boo could do a nice thing, and yet Scout would still be scared because of his reputation. Finally, another
Harper Lee’s only book, To Kill a Mockingbird, is the stereotypical tale of childhood and innocence, yet it successfully incorporates mature themes, like the racism in the South at the time, to create a masterpiece of a work that has enraptured people’s minds and hearts for generations. According to esteemed novelist Wally Lamb, “It was the first time in my life that a book had sort of captured me. That was exciting; I didn’t realize that literature could do that” (111). Scout’s witty narration and brash actions make her the kind of heroine you can’t help but root for, and the events that take place in Maycomb County are small-scale versions of the dilemmas that face our world today. Mockingbird is a fantastically written novel that belongs on the shelves of classic literature that everyone should take the time to read and appreciate for its execution of style and the importance of its content.
Harper Lee’s, To Kill a Mockingbird, tells the story of how a young girl matures over time. The girl lives in Maycomb, Alabama and is faced with people different than herself; such as those of different ethnicities and those who have different personality types. At first the girl, named Scout Finch, is unempathetic towards others because she cannot interpret their feelings and life situations, but over time she develops the mature feelings of empathy. Scout’s further development of compassion enables her to be more empathetic towards others, and strengthens her new and previous relationships. Thus, throughout the novel, Harper Lee, establishes Scout Finch as a dynamic character to emphasize that when
The character in Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird who changed the most was Scout, otherwise known as Jean-Louise Finch. Scout was an adventurous, intelligent young girl who is extremely curious. She tells the story as an adult, but she is only 5 years old at the beginning of the summer. She is very smart for her age, and matures the most out of all the characters in the novel.
Scout Finch is a protagonist poster child, in the story To Kill a Mockingbird. From her intelligence and sass to her curiosity, she makes the story run. Intelligence is not a common trait among six year olds, yet Scout demonstrates her cleverness strongly throughout the beginning of the story. Going to school for any child is usually tough, however on Scout’s first day she was already literate and was even told to have her “father not teach [her] anymore.” (Lee, 22) Not being able to read was very painful for Scout since she had “been reading ever since she was born,” (Lee,8) making it a daily habit, not a lesson. Sass also factors into Scout’s personality which was displayed in her scene with Walter Cunningham at dinner when she asked him
Jean Louise Scout Finch Jean Louise Finch starts off as six years old in the novel. She’s quite a short girl with dark hair and bangs, who wears ‘overalls’ most of the time, rather than dresses that girls usually wear. This is an indication that she’s still going through the childhood stage of life. It’s also assumed that she may have many scars on her hands and legs due to the amount of times she fights boys at school. Therefore, she is seen to be bigger than many her age.
Jean Louise Finch is the youthful storyteller of To Kill a Mockingbird that prefers the nickname Scout. Scout’s personalities is both an examiner and onlooker. Scout asks intense questions that people couldn’t reply, yet at some point those questions aren’t politically right, yet can pose these questions as a kid. As a child Scout does not comprehend the full proposal of the things happening around her, but that makes her an objective observer and reporter in suitable sense.
Harper Lee’s timeless novel To Kill a Mockingbird is told by Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch, a fiery young girl from the quiet town of Maycomb, Alabama. In defiance of the traditionally passive role of Southern women, Scout grew up as a tomboy and, like her older brother Jem, was unafraid to engage other children in physical confrontations. At the onset of the novel, Scout displayed these aggressive tendencies, fighting classmates whom she believed had wronged her or her family. However, Scout developed as a character in the first half of To Kill a Mockingbird to the extent that she was willing to walk away from fights that weren’t worth fighting. Scout’s willingness to engage in combat with other children early on in the novel was evident in the description of her treatment of Walter Cunningham after being punished for explaining his financial situation to her teacher.
A person brave enough to turn back the cover will be transported into a timeless tale set in 1960’s Maycomb County. The reader will be enthralled as they follow young Jem and Scout on the hardest journey they will ever have to take – the journey of growth. Scout as a young idealist and Jem as her guide, they navigate the ups and downs of growing older, and as each day passes, they learn the true meaning of love, but also witness the evil that lurks around in their lives. As every hour ticks by, as every event unfolds, whether good or bad, they learn what maturation truly means, and come face to face with power, racism, pain, hardship, and the good that can come out of all of it. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout and Jem experience
Scout lives in Maycomb County where she has to discover the unfair realities of society alongside prejudice people and some honest, accepting, and compassionate people. Her father, Atticus, is a lawyer who teaches her life lessons to help her understand different perspectives. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee illustrates how people’s ignorance results in prejudice against others and can only be stopped through understanding and compassion. Lee exemplifies the ignorant people in a society and their effect on others using the people in Maycomb County.