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How Does Scout Finch Change In To Kill A Mockingbird

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“Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad” (Lee 373). To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a story about the sleepy town of Maycomb. It takes place during a dark time for America, the Great Depression. The tale is told from the point of view of Scout Finch, a naive, young girl who matures throughout the book. Through her flashbacks, the reader discovers how Scout develops with Atticus’ guidance; as she learns how a mockingbird symbolizes innocence, the discrimination towards African Americans, and how empathy can change a person’s outlook …show more content…

One day, her father, Atticus, told her brother, Jem, that it was a sin to kill a mockingbird. This puzzled Scout, for her father had never said anything was a sin, so she asked Miss Maudie. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (Lee 119). This symbol of innocence is seen in Arthur “Boo” Radley, a misunderstood, awkward kid, Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of rape, and the kids, as they grow up and are exposed to inequality and …show more content…

This changed when Atticus told her, “You can 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 39). When Scout becomes empathetic, she finds it easier to get along with people, easier to understand the situation. Finally, at the end of the book, she perceives Boo’s compassion: he saved Scout and Jem from the immoral act of Bob Ewell, he brought them gifts, he put a blanket over Scout when she was cold, he stitched up Jem’s pants. The small acts of kindness that once frightened her now gave her a sense of sentimentality.
Over the course of just a few years, Scout acquired empathy, lost innocence, and cruelty. Meeting Boo Radley and witnessing Tom Robinson’s trial helped her undergo multiple revelations. She learned that society wouldn’t accept certain differences, no matter how insignificant they should be. When she contemplated back to the time Atticus told her to be more empathetic, she learned that he was right. You can’t know someone until you stand in their shoes and walk around in

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Scout is definitely a character we see growth in. She goes from being a little girl who can’t control her anger to a young lady that wants a change in the world. In this quote, Scout shows that she tries to climb into Jem 's skin and understand what he is going through. In this part of the chapter was when the tree hole, that has the gifts got filled up and Jem felt bad about not giving anything in return. When scout saw that Jem was moody and sad, she didn’t want to bother him.

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Scout is understanding because she could see Boo Radley for the kind and sensitive man that he is, not a scary monster that rumors make him out to be in the town. When Scout calls Boo Radley, “Mr. Arthur” (Lee 364) instead of Boo when she walks him to the front porch, this shows she sees him as a person, and is an example of her maturity as a character in the story or personal growth. Scout Finch is an imaginative person, because the novel is based around the imagination and innocence of a young child growing up in a racist southern town during the great depression. Her imagination influences her views of the other characters in the story and her young age is an important feature of her character. There is not a specific quote to highlight this best, it's a significant part of her story, being a six year old tomboy navigating the world around her.

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In the novel, inhumanity is the root of many people’s loneliness and the origin of many children’s loss of innocence. Jem and Scout are taught a very different, and more humane, way of treating people, regardless of how different the person may be, by their father, Atticus. He teaches them that “you never really understand a person… until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it” (P 33). Scout tries to apply this as she struggles to understand the inhumanity she witnesses around her, but is largely unsuccessful until the end of the novel. Only after walking Arthur home on the night Arthur saved her life did she truly understand this; “Atticus was right.

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At the start of the book, Scout doesn’t have the best idea of what the world around her really is, slowly but surely, she learns and listens through things that happen to her throughout the story. Earlier on, Scout still conveys determination, Jem picks on her quite a lot for ‘turning more into a girl’, “I swear, Scout, sometimes you act so much like a girl it's mortifyin',” (Jem, pg 50), but despite Jem picking on her, she went through everything with Jem and Dill. She faced her fears, she went along with Jem to read to cranky Mrs. Dubose for a whole month and was always there when something about the Radleys was brought up, from all these experiences came a lesson to Scout and factored into her maturation. One of the most important exchanges in the book was when Miss Maudie and Atticus explained to Scout why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird (Miss Maudie, pg 119). Scout takes what Miss Maudie told her into account and brings it up wisely in Boo’s defense.

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