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Scout Finch Coming Of Age Essay

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A young girl who realizes the truth of society. A mature father who fixes the wrongs of society. A misjudged man who doesn’t realize how society has judged him. Throughout the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” written by Harper Lee, prejudice and discrimination occurs in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. As social injustice continues to spread during the civil rights movement, the main character, Jean Louise Finch also known as Scout, is exposed to racism as she sees multiple unjust situations happen right before her eyes -- causing her to mature and come of age. In the final chapter of the novel, Scout has her most important coming of age lesson as she finally understands the wrongs of how society treats others because of an an innocent and …show more content…

To begin with the most important literary element, throughout the whole story and Chapter 31, the motif of considering others perspective before judging them is shown, to develop the coming of age theme. Starting off, at the very beginning of the book, after coming home from school, Scout complains to her father, Atticus, that she didn’t like her teacher because she told Scout to stop reading and learning new things from Atticus. Afterwards, Atticus introduces this motif to teach her but she was too young to understand its meaning, “ ‘First of all,’ he said, ‘if you learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you reconsider things from his point of view. . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it,’ ” (p.39). When Atticus had given Scout this advice, she didn’t really understand because of her innocence and still believes that what she thinks is right. Atticus had known this but still told her so she can think about as she matures, since it was a very important lesson to …show more content…

First of all, in the beginning of the novel Scout and other people had not seen and known Boo Radley had judged him to be a crazy person that committed many crimes. However, when Scout finally meets Boo Radley he was not the person the rumors had described him to be; Boo’s innocent voice is shown through his simple yet purposeful diction and a naive tone as he speaks to Scout, “He was still holding my hand and he gave no sign of letting me go. ‘Will you take me home?’ He almost whispered it, in the voice of a child afraid of the dark” (p.372). The simple words in the phrase “Will you take me home?” shows his innocence and that he hadn’t had enough education to speak more maturely like an adult he was. Boo’s innocent voice also has a naive tone and sounded like something a young child would say -- proving the theme that coming of age involves looking past society's misjudgements and seeing the truth of people from their perspective, since Boo was very different in person than what society had labeled him as. Moving on, Scout’s innocent voice at the beginning of the novel was shown as she had not matured yet to think that Boo Radley might be a different person that the rumors she had heard. Despite that,

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