To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee: Character Analysis

"Knowing is not understanding. There is a great difference between knowing and understanding: you can know a lot about something and not really understand it", once said by Charles Kettering. In the town of Maycomb, Scout, a girl who is a tomboy is surrounded by prejudice. As she grows up from an innocent girl, to understanding racism, isolation, and notices how unfair the community she lives in could be. In To Kill a Mocking Bird, Harper Lee informs the readers that growing up can teach you how understanding other people can make you a better person through symbolism, characterization, and dialogue.

First, Lee uses symbolism to demonstrate how Scout develops a better understanding about Atticus and Boo Radley. In the beginning of the book,

This is because he wanted to teach them the meaning of killing a mockingbird. For example, Atticus tells Scout about how innocent mockingbirds are when he says, ''I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird" (Lee 90). This suggests that Atticus is trying to tell the children that it is an immoral act to kill mockingbirds. Scout also asks Miss. Maudie why it is a sin and tells her that they do not do anything besides making music for people to enjoy. Scout takes this as a learning experience and realizes that she should not shoot at them since she understood the meaning of innocence. At the end of the book, Boo Radley makes an appearance and saves Jem and Scout's life from Bob Ewell. Heck Tate later came to talk with Atticus about who he thought killed Bob Ewell, and under those circumstances, Scout agreed with his statement. As an illustration, Scout stated, "Yes sir, I understand,' I reassured him, 'Mr. Tate was right.' Well, it’d be sort of like shootin‘ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?" (Lee 280). This truly reveals that Scout is considering what it is like

When Scout is pushed around to act like a girl from Calpurnia and put on a dress, she does not agree to it. Furthermore, when Jem told her to act more like a boy, she says, “I was not so sure, but Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that's why other people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one I could just go off and find some to play with" (Lee 54). With this in mind, Scout shows believes that being a girl is outrageous. While on the other hand, boys are superior because they are manlier. Scout shows she understood what Jem meant because she wanted to start acting like a boy and not a girl to fit in with her brother. In addition, when Scout walked Boo back to his home, she created a special bond with him as if they were friends. When he goes inside, she stands on his porch imagining how she should've looked at things from his perspective. For instance, Scout expressed, "Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough” (Lee 279). This demonstrates that Scout realizes what Boo had been through for the past few years. This led to her understanding why Boo Radley liked to stay locked up in his home and be isolated from the rest of the world. At this moment, Scout understood that he