Coming Of Age In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

Have you unfairly judged someone based on the way they look? In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, one of Scout’s coming-of-age moments is when she judges Mr. Raymond for being intoxicated. However, she realizes that he was just pretending to be drunk. The author, Harper Lee, uses conflict and deception to convey the theme that judging someone without being in their shoes is unjust. Moreover, in the novel, Scout is an arrogant kid who later in the book experiences a coming-of-age moment, and she starts to understand her community more. When Scout goes to Calpurnia's church, she encounters Lula. I felt Calpurnia's hand dig into my shoulder. ‘What you want, Lula?’ she asked, in tones she had never heard of. She spoke quietly, contemptuously.

(172) As they watch this conflict, she starts to understand mob mentality and wants to go to her father’s side, but Jem and Dill hold her back. She made it to her father and noticed Mr. Cunningham. She started to talk about how their family helped his family, and this caused the mob to break up. This incident helped her understand more about not judging someone, even if they're doing bad things. Additionally, when they observed their surroundings, they noticed Mr. Raymond sitting next to the colored people drinking out of a sack. Dill asks why Mr Raymond was drinking out of the sack, and Jem responds with “‘He’s got a Co-Cola bottle full of whiskey in there’” (182). Scout also assumed that he was drinking whiskey, but this leads them to assume that he is a drunk without knowing what his background was. Later in the courtroom when Tom was being interrogated, Dill started to cry, causing Dill and Scout to exit the courtroom. As they got out, they stumbled upon Mr. Raymond: “‘Here,’ he said, offering Dill his paper sack with straws in it. ‘Take a good sip, it’ll quieten you’ Dill sucked on the straw, smiled, and pulled at length.