How Does Scout Finch Change In To Kill A Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird Character Change

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, each one of of the main characters changed quite a bit or very drastically. However, the book is told through the eyes of Scout Finch and throughout the novel we can see that Scout has shown the most change. From the beginning of the book to the end, each character’s personality, including Scouts, was altered through the experiences they went through in just three years. In the beginning of the book, as a growing child, Scout does not know what goes on in the outside world around her, she’s surrounded by nothing but playtime and imagination, she was full of innocence, pure innocence. An intelligent, kind hearted girl who is not aware of the evil the real world

She cussed, she fought, and she had attitude. Scout had a poor temper which made things tick her off quickly and everyone pressured her to become a modest lady. Through her sass of course she refused, and not even constant reminders would make her budge such as, when her uncle was in town and caught her using profanity he stated very clearly “I’ll be here a week, and I don't want to hear any words like that while I'm here... You want to grow up to be a lady, don't you?’’ (81). Not only was her Uncle and Aunt tired of her immatureness, so was Jem. Jem was also maturing himself and felt the need to knock some sense into Scout so that she can uphold to more womanly expectations. Jem has never questioned Scouts tomboy personality but when Jem said “It's time you started bein' a girl and acting right!” she was in shock. Not until the end of the book did Scout become aware of the fact that it was time to act more lady like. After Atticus had notified Aunt Alexandra and Scout that Tom Robinson had been shot in jail, both were very saddened over his death. But, Aunt Alexandra was lady like enough to hold in her tears and pretend as if it didn’t affect her at all. Scout then realized “if Aunty could be a lady at a time like this, so could [she]” (237). Scout has never accepted the fact that she had to act more lady like but in that moment, after seeing her Aunt pull herself together she knew

In the beginning of the book, Scout seems to be very cautious of him and perhaps even a bit scared. The way she described Boo Radley was that he “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” (13). Scout and everyone else in Maycomb saw him as a monster. But,t after a while when she tries to get closer to meeting him and tormenting him playing the Boo radley game, her fear of him begins to disappear. By the end of the book she begins to see Boo Radley as a real person, who’s name is not Boo but, Arthur Radley. All along Scout had been wrong about Boo Radley, she indicates that “Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a person until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough” (279). Scout takes Atticus’s advice and puts herself in his shoes and she claims to fully understand him, she learns to appreciate the love Boo grows for her and Jem and the protection he offers them. After the incident when Boo Radley saves her and Jem from the attack by Bob Ewell, she see’s