TKAM

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee shows the maturing of a young girl in a segregated society. Set in Maycomb, Alabama, a small town with a pleasant façade but a prejudice interior, this story is about Scout Finch, a young girl who comes of age and learns to understand life. During the 1930s, the Great Depression had begun and southerners had not accepted African Americans as equals. In the novel, Harper Lee shows how Scout matures into a knowledgeable, responsible, understanding young lady in a segregated society.

Scout starts the novel as an ignorant 5 year old. She is unaware of the severity of the segregation in Maycomb. Her ignorance acts as a shield protecting her from the prejudice there. Young, curious Scout asks what different terms are, like mixed-children. Without the exposure to these kinds of things in the south shows how sheltered Atticus has kept his children and how unknowledgeable Scout is. In the middle of the novel, when Aunt Alexandra tells Scout the Cunninghams are trashy, yappy, and not their kind of folks, Scout’s eyes open as she realizes how separated people are because of their way of life. Her ignorance and father block her from being able to understand why people treat others with such prejudice. Atticus told Scout, “Most of this Old Family stuff is foolishness because everybody’s family’s just as old as everybody else’s”(303), reminding her that all humans are equal no matter where their family traces them back to. Scout also corrects Jem when he tells her there are four types of people in the world. She implies that everybody is equal by saying only one type of folk exists. Because her ignorance has begun to fade away, Scout is able to see the inequality that higher people treat lower people wit...

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...he understands Atticus’s knowledge when she stands on Boo Radley’s porch, realizing how much she really had learned from him as she put herself in Boo’s shoes and walked around in them.

Doing that was enough for her to reflect back on her life of irresponsibility, ignorance, and false beliefs and realize how much she has developed into a young lady. Scout’s coming of age is comparable to the maturation of America during the time period Harper Lee set the book in. Because of America’s irresponsibility, the stock market crashed causing the great depression to begin in 1929. This experience teaches America very valuable lessons and brings knowledge, just as Scout learns from her mistakes. After World War II, America proved itself through strength of knowledge. With victory, America is viewed as a superpower, just as Scout has reached her pinnacle point in growing up.