How Does Scout Finch's Ability To Change

George Bernard Shaw claims, “Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything” (Goodreads). These words take meaning in two comparable stories. In the first story, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, there is the main character Scout Finch. She is a young girl subjected to life changing influences. She ends up wanting to change how her hometown, Maycomb, views others. But in order to do that, she must be able to change her mindset. Similarly, in The Help, directed by Tate Taylor and based off the novel by Kate Kathryn, there is a woman named Skeeter Phelan. She also wishes to change attitudes in her hometown, Jackson. Both Scout and Skeeter require the ability to transform their views, even though they are years apart. Although Scout

At first, Scout goes along with Society by saying, “Cal, I know Tom Robinson’s in jail an’ he’s done something wrong…” (Lee 123). She takes what others say as serious and assumes Tom Robinson, a black man, did something wrong. However, She later meets other black people and listens to evidence on Tom’s crime. After that, she realizes, “Tom Robinson was probably the only person who was ever decent to her. But she said he took advantage of her, and when she stood up she looked at him if he were dirt beneath her feet” (Lee 192). Scout then grasps how black people can be very good people and that it is whites who can be horrible people. This supports how Scout’s beliefs on race change because she changes from thinking badly of blacks to understanding that they can be great people while whites can be even worse. On the other hand, Skeeter already thinks well of blacks as she is raised by a kind, black maid named Constantine. Like Scout though, Skeeter believes that the whites in her town are good people. When she talks with Hilly, a socialite woman who was Skeeter’s friend, she starts to transform. This is because Hilly says to Skeeter’s friend, the black maid Aibileen, “Maybe I can’t send you to jail for what you wrote, but I can send you to jail for being a thief”. This, along with other rude remarks by Hilly, leads Skeeter into changing her attitude so that she sees how bad that the

When Scout’s family has Walter Cunningham over, a boy Scout’s age from a poor family, Scout is unhappy. She complains to Calpurnia, “He ain’t company, Cal, he’s just a Cunningham” (Lee 24). Scout thinks badly of Walter just because he’s from an impoverished and underprivileged family. Calpurnia and Scout’s father scold her, though, and Scout eventually becomes friends with Walter. Yet, when her Aunt Alexandra hears that Scout wants to have Walter over to play, she tells Scout that he can not come over because he is not their type of folks. Scout immediately questions her, declaring, “Why not Aunty? They’re good folks” (Lee 223). Scout immediately came to Walter’s defense and showed how she transformed from the girl who scorns Walter for being poor to one who defends him because he i s a good person. Comparably, Skeeter also does not stand up to defend an underprivileged person. When Celia Foote, a woman from a poor town who marries into riches, is mentioned around the socialite girls of Jackson, they treat her as underprivileged. At first Skeeter does nothing, but she sees her friend Hilly make rude remarks about Celia. Hilly comments, “She can’t take a hint can she? … The tacky girl Johnny married … Mail’s a lot slower way out there in the county, huh?”. Skeeter hears this, and starts to rebel against Hilly’s views. She rejects Hilly’s ways and changes her belief on defending