ipl-logo

Scout Being Excluded In To Kill A Mockingbird

428 Words2 Pages

Just because someone is of a different gender it does not mean they deserve to be excluded. In To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee, a seven-year-old girl names Scout grows up during the Depression Era in Alabama. Along with her 11-year-old brother named Jem, and a best friend named Dill. When the kids are hanging out together in the summer, Scout starts to get excluded by her brother and male best friend because she is a girl. The behavior of Jem and Dill shows how society conditions boys to think that hanging out with girls is weird and uncool. Scout is left out when both Jem and Dill are playing in their house’s backyard. Scout walks in on them in the middle of a huddle. “When I joined them, as usual, they said go away” (Lee, 151). Later in the conversation, Dill says “ If you do not say you will do what we tell you, we ain’t gonna tell you anything, you act like you grew ten inches in the night” (Lee, 151). Jem’s view of Scout is shown very clearly in the above quote. Both Jem and Dill are bossing Scout around and even threaten her. Scout can only participate in activities with her brother and friend if she is listening to orders from them. We can infer that just because Scout is a girl she is being excluded. …show more content…

She learns life advice from Miss Maudie. This is because her brother and friend have started to exclude her from their activities. “Until Jem and Dill excluded me from their plans, she was only another lady in the neighborhood, but a relatively benign presence” (Lee 47). Scout describes how after Jem and Dill stopped hanging out with her, Miss Maudie started to have a presence on her. Throughout chapter five multiple acts of exclusion are mentioned all revolving around Scout. This is due to the fact that she is a girl and in Jem and Dill’s opinion being with girls is weird and

Show More
Related
494 Words | 2 Pages

Another example from the book where we see Jem leaves Scout out is her first day of school when he tells her to not follow him around during school “Jem was careful to explain that during school hours I was not to bother him” (Lee 20). Another reason that Scout felt unimportant was because Jem was

Read More
291 Words | 2 Pages

Scout comments that, “Dill said I was the only girl he would ever love, then he neglected me” and “he only grew closer to Jem” (Lee 5). In this quote, Sout is jealous of how much time Dill and Jem are spending together. Jem’s jealousy can be seen earlier, when he says “spit it out right now”(Lee 1). In this quote, Jem is not only acting as an older brother to Scout, but he is also jealous that Scout did not give him any gum.

Read More
733 Words | 3 Pages

It is hard to understand something if you haven’t experienced it. She may be younger and a different sex but Scout doesn’t realize that she is actually beginning to change. (69) When Dill comes over to play one summer, Jem tells of how Scout is becoming more and more of a girl. She may be too young or putting in the back of her mind that she is growing up. The struggle to understand is the step before being

Read More
553 Words | 3 Pages

Scout shows she realizes what being a girl really is while watching others. “Calpurnia seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there was some skill involved in being a girl”(Lee 115/116). Scout has had her standards of what women should be by her brother, but once Scout sees Calpurnia working she realizes otherwise - to show her womanly traits instead of hiding them. “I was not so sure, but Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that's why other people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one I could just go off and find some to play with”(Lee 41). Scout has always been taught that girls are bad, and boys have everything that could ever be good - she can not be one of the bad girls if she doesn't act like one.

Read More
1235 Words | 5 Pages

While one of the main themes of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is understanding another human’s perspective. Scout Finch, the story’s protagonist, shows growth and maturity as she learns to deal with the injustice of a prejudiced society. Scout is a young girl from Alabama whose father, Atticus Finch, is asked to defend an African-American man who is charged with rape. The southern way of life during the Great Depression would not allow Tom Robinson a fair trial, and Scout and her brother Jem are forced to deal with a county’s ignorance and racist attitudes. While in the beginning of the book Scout seems to be an innocent, naive little girl, she matures as time goes on and ultimately learns the lessons her father wants her to understand.

Read More
359 Words | 2 Pages

Scouts developments throughout the novel revolve around the lessons she is taught be three people, Calpurnia, Miss Maudie, and Aunt Alexandra. These three characters each have their own lessons to teach including forgiveness, understanding, equality and much more. These lessons allow Scout to have a wider perspective of the situation she finds herself in. Scout in the novel is presented to us as a growing a developing character. The lessons she is taught by her three feminine influences help her development a lot in the throughout the novel as they are a wide variety of lessons most likely helping think of what to do in most situations she finds herself in.

Read More
839 Words | 4 Pages

After he decides that Dill is too young for him, he starts to read books as he sees his father do every night. If Scout were to ask him a question, Jem would try to act more mature and tell her he is reading or respond in a sophisticated manner. Jem starts asking clarifying questions that a young, immature child wouldn’t even think to ask. “If there’s just one kind of folks, why can’t they get along with each other? If they’re all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other?”

Read More
1247 Words | 5 Pages

She teaches her to live life to the fullest and the ways of Maycomb. There are many interactions between Scout and Miss Maudie and all of them are positive. Scout is guided by Miss Maudie’s manner and looks up to her. When she is first introduced, Miss Maudie is described as, “a widow, a chameleon lady who worked in her flower beds in an old straw hat and men’s coveralls, but after her five o 'clock bath she would appear on the porch and reign over the street in magisterial beauty,”(Lee 56). Scout loves that Maudie is able to get her hands dirty during the day and become ladylike at night, and nobody judges her for it.

Read More
1100 Words | 5 Pages

The characterization of Scout reveals that she is very sympathetic and worried about Jem risking his life. This further heated the argument, leaving Jem feeling moody and silent. While trying to comfort her older brother, Scout is reminded of Atticus' advice, “As Atticus had once advised me to do, I tried to climb into Jem’s skin and walk around in it” (77). The characterization of Scout highlights her mentality maturing. At the beginning of the novel, Scout has a difficult time understanding others until Atticus gives her important advice about sympathy.

Read More
673 Words | 3 Pages

In the beginning of the book, Jem, Scout, Dill constantly

Read More
712 Words | 3 Pages

Pg.69). This quote represents the fear that scout shows while trying to hide her femininity. It shows that scout believes that women have a minuscule amount of power, and that she needs to act like a boy for her to even be recognized by Jem as a member of the group. Gender equality is not fully intact, as shown explicitly throughout the novel. Scout is not the only woman who feels the impact of sexism in the novel.

Read More
532 Words | 3 Pages

She runs and plays with boys and hates it when she is not included in Jem and Dill’s adventures. She is fast to resolve her issues with her fists. It does not help that her mother died when she was very young. Although she does not miss her nor remember her, she has lacked a motherly figure to guide her in the right direction and has relied on Atticus to show her the way. Within the context of the novel’s setting, this quotes shows that Scout uses words and phrases that could be considered to be inappropriate for young ladies.

Read More
615 Words | 3 Pages

As the book progresses Scout is having constant difficulty with her lack of maturation. Many problems are starting to occur in the book, and they are problems that she just doesn't understand yet. Scout is still young and doesn’t quite understand why she isnt told everything, and why she isn’t just as mature as Jem. “ That’s because you can’t hold something in your mind but a little while, said Jem. It’s different with grown folks, we-”

Read More
766 Words | 4 Pages

Ultimately, Scout overcomes the social norms placed upon women when she punches Francis in the face, picks a fight with Cecil Jacobs and chooses to spend most of her time playing with Jem and Dill. First and foremost, Scout escapes the restrictions imposed upon women by continuing to play with Jem and Dill instead of indulging herself in learning how to cook or drinking tea with other women. Although she will sometimes sit with Calpurnia in the kitchen and drink tea with her aunt

Read More
106 Words | 1 Pages

Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, illustrates how women are restricted by societal expectations. Women and girls are expected to act a certain way, to be feminine and docile. After an argument between Jem and Scout, Jem goes as far to shout, “‘It’s time you started bein’ a girl and acting right!’” (Lee, 153). Jem believes that Scout should be cooperative and malleable to be a typical girl.

Read More

More about Scout Being Excluded In To Kill A Mockingbird

Related Topics

Open Document