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Childhood In To Kill A Mockingbird

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A person’s moral compass is shifted with each memory gained in life. Harper Lee’s story, To Kill a Mockingbird, revolves around two impressionable growing children, Scout, and Jem Finch. Over the course of two summers, the Finch children learn how to dictate their judgment over what is right and what is wrong. Living their childhood in the small town of 1930s Maycomb, Alabama, they experience moments that change their perception of life forever. Family dynamics, peer interactions, and hometown customs influence their ability to empathize with others.

Experiencing disillusionment is a normal part of coming of age. An important aspect of facing reality involves dealing with other people’s differences. Atticus Finch, the children’s father, teaches …show more content…

By the beginning of the novel, six-year-old Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch had not yet reached that level of understanding, especially when it came to her neighbor, Boo Radley. Arthur ‘Boo’ Radley is the family’s solitary neighbor who is the subject of the majority of the rumors in Maycomb. The adults’ gossip had laid the foundation for her perception of Boo Radley; she was unable to see him as the human being he was. Instead, he was a frightening “malevolent phantom (Lee, 9)” with “bloodstained (Lee, 14)” hands. Her deductions drove her to treat him without kindness or empathy; he was but a monster who only brought pain to the community. Scout and the other children’s antics crossed the line of respect as they disregarded his right to respect. Scout’s disrespect for Boo Radley had emerged from a place of ignorance visible to …show more content…

Though the divisions between race and class were apparent, Scout and Jem could not comprehend how divided their world was. One way that Scout and Jem came to understand the divisions in their world was through their exchanges with the Cunninghams. The Cunninghams were a family of poor, white farmers entirely dependent on their harvest to survive. When their youngest, Walter Cunningham Jr., came over for dinner, he relished himself in their supply of syrup. Scout was appalled and disgraced him at the table, leading Calpurnia, their black cook, to pull her away from the dining. Scout struggled to see her mistake, she couldn’t see him as anything more than “just a Cunningham (Lee, 27).” She respected the levels of the social hierarchy in Maycomb and treated Walter as if he were inferior solely because of his financial status. Calpurnia informed her that “some folks---don’t eat like” like her family could (Lee, 27). Although Syrup may seem like an ordinary thing for Scout, it is a luxury for someone like Walter Cunningham who doesn’t even know where his next meal is coming from. This ordeal helped Scout question just how damaged the social norms are in

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Throughout this novel, Scout goes through many realities of the adult world. When she is young, she learns about people in poverty, like Walter Cunningham in her class. When he comes over to her house, he starts piling food onto his plate like he has never eaten before. Then as he pours a ton of molasses onto his food, Scout decides to speak up. “But he’s gone and drowned his dinner in syrup.

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“I had never seen our neighborhood from this angle” Scout thought as she turned to go home. Then she pictured the past two years as Boo had seen it - from “this angle”. After her reflection, Scout remembered what Atticus had once said, “you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them” (374). Scout never really knew who Boo Radley was until she stood in his shoes and walked around in them, and now she knows him as a gentle, protective, and kind person who just does not like

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Scout’s family is more middle class, but she is having a lower class kid over for lunch. Calpurnia yells, “Hush your mouth! Don’t matter who they are, any-body sets foot in this house’s yo’ comp’ny and don’t you catch me remarkin’ on their ways like you was so high and mighty!” (Lee 33) In this quote, Scout has Walter Cunningham over for lunch.

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The novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee tells the story of Scout Finch, a young girl, and her older brother Jem living in Maycomb County, Alabama in the 1930s, during the Great Depression. The story highlights the harsh realities of poverty and how one should never take anything for granted. Atticus Finch, the father of Scout and Jem, shows his success in parenting when he teaches his kids the importance of empathy, not judging a book by its cover, and keeping your head raised high. Atticus shows empathy when he encourages his kids to leave Boo Radley alone, the idea of “not judging a book by its cover” when putting himself in the position of others, and making sure his daughter, Scout, keeps her head raised high and not let violence

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After getting in trouble for typical rebellious adolescent behavior, Boo Radley has rarely been seen outside of his house. The mystery surrounding him makes others in the town intrigued about the “malevolent phantom” that “went out at night when the moon was down, and peeped in windows” (Lee 10-11). Due to a combination of children’s imaginations and the variety of rumors spread throughout the town, people assumed Boo Radley was “about six-and-a-half feet tall” with “a long jagged scar that ran across his face” and “what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time” (Lee 16). The people of Maycomb were not accustomed to people who differed from them in any way and any minor difference could make them an outcast. When “The shutters and doors of the Radley house were closed on Sundays, another thing alien to Maycomb’s ways”, it was recognized as unusual and it further enhanced the beliefs that Boo Radley was a ‘monster’.

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Rumors swept through the town, ruining a man’s reputation and giving him no reason to step outside of his own home. In To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, Arthur “Boo” Radley is the most complex of Maycomb’s residents. Many say Boo is a killer that should not be trusted near children. However, Scout thinks otherwise as she tries to understand Boo herself. She learns more than she figured, as Boo teaches her numerous lessons without even meeting her.

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An Analysis of Empathy in To Kill Mockingbird Atticus Finch once claimed that “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (Lee 33). The novel To Kill a Mockingbird was written by Harper Lee, who intertwines the themes of empathy and prejudice to exhibit the development of children in the 1930s. The storyline takes place during the 1930s in the small conservative town of Maycomb, Alabama.

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Scout fails to understand this, because her friend is a Cunningham, they are not ‘suppose’ to strengthen their bond. All of the children in Maycomb avoid the Radley house. Although he has never been spotted by them, they knew exactly what he appeared as, a monster. “Boo Radley was about-six-and-a-half feet tall... 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.”

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(20) Jem’s exaggerated description demonstrates the community’s intense prejudice towards Boo Radley. The people are able to alienate a member based off of speculations. Scout, an innocent member of Maycomb, has grown up with the idea that Boo acts and looks like

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“To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee is a timeless classic that explores themes of racism, prejudice, justice, and innocence. The novel is set in the 1930s in Maycomb, a small town in Alabama, and follows the story of Scout Finch, a young girl, and her family. The novel has a profound impact on its readers, and it is considered to be one of the greatest works of American literature. In this essay, I will explore the importance of five quotes from the novel and how they relate to the themes of the book. “Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

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Jem said that “there’s four kinds of folks in the world. The ordinary kind like us and the neighbors… the Cunninghams… the Ewells… and the negroes.” This statement exemplifies the social stratification in the small town of Maycomb. Even very young children are able to distinguish and differentiate between classes. The book depicts “the negroes” as the very worst of the classes, and people like the Cunninghams, as among the highest class, the “whites.”

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Remember the days spent dancing with imaginary friends, tea parties with stuffed animals who could talk, then going to bed with the boogie man under the bed? The novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is about Jem and Scouts journey through their youth as they work to deal with tough subjects such as rape, racism, and the realization that the world is not how they once viewed it. Throughout the story, Lee demonstrates the loss of childhood innocence, which shows that one's true perspective of the world is obtained through maturity. To begin with, all children experience innocence in their youth, but as they grow up, their understanding of the real world betters.

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Scout is initially naïve and does not think about how her actions affect others, showing that children can be offensive when their naïveté equates to a lack of empathy. For example, when Jem invites Walter Cunningham over for dinner, Scout is not accustomed to the way he eats. She says to Calpurnia, “But he’s gone and drowned his dinner in syrup, he’s poured it all over” (Lee 32). Scout’s youth prevents her from understanding the differences in other people’s life circumstances, including Walter’s. Her family is wealthier than the Cunninghams and she knows proper manners; Walter, on the other hand, likely does not.

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This semester, I was exposed to a wide array of speakers who presented information about the ways in which they had portrayed God within the realm of their disciplines, and how they had seen others do it as well throughout the ages. Some commons themes present within each of the respective disciplines were the shared history, and impact of society on the ways each group portrayed God. One cannot speak of the history of culture in the Western World without first discussing the reasons why increases in culture generally occur and the effect that the money has had on such developments. Cultural landmarks, pieces, and figures are the result of investments of wealth for either a personal or communal gain. With many of the major cultural objects

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Boo Radley who “was not seen again for fifteen years”, is the most misunderstood person in Maycomb. His childhood mistakes marginalise him from society by a “form of intimidation Mr Radley employed to keep Boo out of sight.” To elaborate, Boo did not intend to separate himself and be perceived as a “malevolent phantom.” In truth, Boo is intensely lonely and wants to befriend the children in which he saves their lives. Similarly, in The

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