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Scout's Innocence In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

689 Words3 Pages

Growing up is fun until you realize how racist and cruel your society is. In the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, Scout experiences many changes in Maycomb as she grows. She loses her innocence, learns about the people of Maycomb, learns influencing lessons from Atticus and the amount of prejudice and intolerance that’s in her community. Although she may have been innocent in the beginning, Scout began to understand society and the truths and lies of Maycomb as she grew. The first time Scout lost her innocence was by witnessing Tom Robinson’s trial. From the moment she stepped into that courtroom, she learned how bad society is and all the lies that have been spread through rumors. She notices how untruthful and racist her community is even at a court which represents honesty and fairness. Allegedly, Tom Robinson was accused of raping Mayella Ewell. In the court hearing, Atticus questioned Tom Robinson and he firmly answered. He was later pronounced guilty even though he was honest. In the eyes of the reader, Tom is innocent. He couldn’t have stroke Mayella because his good arm was damaged from a cotton gin. …show more content…

“According to Miss Stephanie, Boo was sitting in the livingroom cutting some items from The Maycomb Tribune to paste in his scrapbook. His father entered the room. As Mr. Radley passed by, Boo drove the scissors into his parent’s leg, pulled them out, wiped them on his pants, and resumed his activities.” (11) As a child, Scout tended to believe this rumor and ended up growing fear until she first encountered him. She managed to learn a lot about him as he left interesting gifts in his tree for her. When she was attacked by Bob Ewell, Boo Radley came and protected her, and later became her friend. After that incident, Scout learned not to judge people based on sayings and rumors, but with

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Another way Scout has changed since the beginning of the book is she understands people have both good and bad qualities that coexist within them, as she becomes closer to an adult and encounters evil in the world. 20. Miss Gates’ lesson to the class about Hitler’s prosecution of Jew’s is ironic, because she herself came out of the courthouse after the trial ended and responded by telling Miss Stephanie Crawford that “it was about time that someone taught them a lesson” when referring to the blacks in the town. It reveals that most people during that time where racist and prejudice to some extent in Maycomb. An example that is similar in our current society portrayed in this chapter is how white males get paid the highest salary, but people of other races and women get paid lower salaries for

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“ you never really understand someone until you consider things from their point of view.” (lee 36) While standing on the front porch of the radley's place scout reflects on the past two year’s, from arthur's point of view, she finally understands what atticus taught her in chapter three. In to kill a mockingbird scout begins to mature in a way, this does not even begin to occur until the end of the story in chapter 31. Scout is young 9 years to be exact , but she is starting to pick up things here and there on little life lessons atticus has taught her. An example of this is when scout is asked by arthur to walk him home, but she wants to be respectful, she takes him home arm in arm as if he were being a gentleman.

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Camila Careaga - Herrera Ms. Newcomb English 2H/Period 6 February 10, 2023 “We don’t mature through age; we mature in awareness”- Byron Katie. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the readers can perceive how children, such as Scout Finch, evolve as they grow up and experience parts of the natural world. Throughout the novel, Scout was able to show bildungsroman as she learns to see things through other's perspectives and learns more about her community through the trial. At the beginning of the novel, we can see Scout's innocence and immaturity as a young child, but also her matureness. Examples of this can be seen with Scout's prejudice against the Cunninghams, or to be exact, Walter Cunningham.

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The Pulitzer Prize winning novel “To Kill A Mockingbird” written by Harper Lee portrays the life of a young girl, Scout, and her family who live together in Maycomb, Alabama circa 1930s. Scout lives next to some fascinating people that have legends and myths made about them because of their back story. One of them being Boo Radley. Boo was locked away in his house by his parents for most of his life after committing crimes that put him away for good. After the news got out about his vanishing into the Radley house forever many stories were made up about him.

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Scout and Jem are forced to deal with racial slurs and insults because of Atticus ' role in the trial. Scout has a very difficult time not physically fighting with other children due to this. Tom is asfsd to be guilty, even after Atticus proves that Tom did not commit the crime. Atticus unintentionally offends Bob Ewell, the father whose daughter is accusing Tom.

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Just standing on the Radley porch was enough. ”(279). Scout uses her imagination to try and view all the past events that have occurred through Boo’s eyes. When she does this she realizes that Boo isn’t a bad person at all, he is actually kind of like a guardian angel. Boo Radley’s character proves a great point that we should never judge or assume things about another person that we know nothing

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In To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Scout matures throughout the book as she matures her innocent nature is gradually lost and she realizes how senseless and brutal people can be. In the beginning she has still not seen any of the bad things people do in the world. Her innocence at is first shown when Dill asks Scout to marry him because they don’t now what marriage really is they both go along with it and say that they are married from then on. Another example of Scout’s innocence is when after she goes to school and gets in trouble she comes home and tells Atticus that she does not want to go to school anymore. She says that Burris Ewell only comes one day then goes home lie it would be a good thing to be a Ewell because you would not

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Think back to when you were little kid around 7 or so and you had no worries about life or anything. All you would think about is candy and toys and nothing about the world of adults. No worries of the weather or what the grown ups would talk about. Scout’s childhood innocence takes a turn from her care free days to the real world of racism and bad people. In To Kill a Mockingbird Scout witnesses the trial of Tom Robinson and how racism is taught to her unknowingly from it.

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Scout is already wise beyond her years, but she continues to grow throughout a series of events in Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill A Mockingbird. The most important thing about Scout is her growth throughout events in the book. The context of To Kill A Mockingbird influenced Scout to change her identity and morality throughout her experiences with stereotypes and racism in Maycomb. The first way that Scout changed was by seeing and experiencing stereotypes in gender.

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Scout is also coming of age with the things she’s forced to hear racists vulgar terms and speech, she asks Atticus what a nigger lover means because she hears it from people in the community when they are talking about Atticus. Atticus is able to answer her back by saying "nigger-lover is just one of those terms that don’t mean anything—like snot-nose. It’s hard to explain—ignorant, trashy people use it when they think somebody’s favoring Negroes over and above themselves.” So Scout learns what this term means but she also had learned to face the reality of the negative opinions and feelings the people in Maycomb against black

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While school may teach lessons, they are certainly not valuable life lessons. Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird repeatedly shows the ineffectiveness of the education system in a child’s morals. To Kill A Mockingbird takes place in the Great Depression era in Alabama, where education was not the best. Teachers would only seek to teach their classes average, everyday lessons rather than valuable life teachings.

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1244 Words | 5 Pages

In Maycomb, people fear what they do not know and what is unusual to them, hence shaping the rumours of Boo Radley to cope with the unknown. Considering he is unseen from the public eye, and has a messy past, many begin to fantasize what is happening with him currently by constructing stories. Anyone who claims that they know information on Boo, have no proof or firsthand experience to support it as the truth. Scout knows that Jem’s information source on Boo Radley is from another individual and their fantasies, “So Jem received most of his information from Miss Stephanie Crawford, a neighbourhood scold, who said she knew the whole thing.”

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In the story Boo Radley plays the role of Scout and Jem’s guardian angel. He watches over them and helps them when they get into trouble. In the first chapters, the kids make fun of Boo, they taunt him. All they know about him is what they have heard, that he is a crazy man. Throughout the story though, Boo proves them wrong.

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Throughout the entire book, Scout is curious about Boo Radley; how he looks, how he acts, and why he has been hiding in his home for so many years. Scout is led to believe that Boo is some sort of monster, and she would run passed his house every day. “As the year passed, released from school thirty minutes before Jem, who had to stay until three o’clock, I ran by the Radley Place as fast as I could, not stopping until I reached the safety of our front porch.” (page 33) Scout was afraid of Boo, because she grew up hearing all of the terrible rumors about him.

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In the beginning of the book Stephanie Crawford, the town gossiper, justifies that she knows everything about Boo Radley. Scout and Jem are frightened by Boo Radley because of all the stories they have heard. Scout is terrified of the Radley place and calls Boo, a “malevolent phantom.” According to Miss Stephanie Crawford, Boo Radley was sitting in the living room cutting some items from the newspaper and when Mr. Radley had passed by him, Boo drove the scissors into his leg.

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