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Loss Of Innocence In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

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In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses the all-encompassing theme of the narrative, loss of innocence, through several of the characters as a means of illustrating the innocence found in all that can be instantly gone by an earth-shattering event. Loss of innocence is found throughout “Scout” Finch, “Jem” Finch, and Tom Robinson. Scout can best be described as an outgoing, strong willed young girl with fists to match. With no inherent desire to dress or remotely act lady like, (“I felt the starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on me”) ( Lee 136) ,as evidenced that she shuns her real name, Jean Louise, and instead prefers to use her more tomboyish name, Scout. Aunt Alexandria eventually succeeds in morphing her into an upstanding child in the Finch household (“Aunty could be a lady at a time like this, so could I”) (Lee 237). As she has no real comprehension of what The Radley’s game constitutes and represents, Scout can be deemed “innocent”. Scout experiences several instances where here innocence was lost, but the most prevalent and powerful one is the trial for Tom Robinson. On the horrid day that the verdict was announced, Scout was faced with the harsh reality that justice doesn’t always prevail (“I saw something …show more content…

As he comes of age, he becomes more mature in both his physical characteristics (“I noticed a new slimness about his body. He was growing taller”) (Lee 225) and his enhanced capacity for understanding and knowing when to walk away (“Jem stiffened. Mrs. Dubose’s shot had gone home”) (Lee 101). In the early onset of the story, Jem has a child-like expectation for what people act like and should act like. Jem, just like Scout, experienced an immense loss as he failed to grapple with the inescapable truth of Tom Robinson’s fate (“his hands were white from gripping the balcony rail”) (Lee

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Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird brings out many emotions as you read the book. It was published in 1960 and became a total hit. To Kill a Mockingbird is set in Alabama, in a small town, Maycomb, during the 60’s. The book makes you feel as if you were the main character, Scout, a young 8 year old girl.

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The theme of the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is, all children experience a loss of innocence at some point in their youth. When a child loses their innocence they realize that the world was not as they thought is was. Jem and Scout Finch experience a loss of innocence after finding out that Boo Radley isn’t a “Malevolent Phantom”. Jem’s thought of Boo being a “Malevolent Phantom” emerges on (page 13) when he portrays Boo like this to Scout, "Boo 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.

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