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To Kill A Mockingbird: Adults Versus Adults

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Adults essentially run the world. They make up juries, vote on their children's futures, and control every aspect of society. As a population, people believe that adults know more about the world than do children. However, children more easily take risks. They have the talent of quick wit, and in addition they are able to traverse the world with a much more open mind in comparison to their elders. Harper Lee, in To Kill a Mockingbird, also compares the worldly knowledge of children and adults. Adults may run the world in terms of overall control, but in terms of open mindedness and perspective, because of their unique qualities, children are the ones who know more about humanity. Many adults fall into the trap of narrow mindedness. They …show more content…

If one thinks back to their childhood, there are hundreds of risks that they took, such as skipping school, jumping off the high diving board, or sitting with different people at the lunch table. Adults aren’t as eager to take those types of risks. Especially in Maycomb, sitting with someone different at the lunch table is “[breaking] a rigid and time honored code of our society.” (272) “Someone different” in this case, would be someone of a different race or someone with less money. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout finds herself in the middle of a lynch mob. She doesn’t realize it at the time, but she ends up potentially saving Tom Robinson’s life. When Scout first steps into the middle of the mob, she thinks she is dealing with Atticus’ friends. She quickly realizes this wasn’t the case, but instead of running away, she takes the risk and continues to converse with the one man she was somewhat familiar with, because she believes that “there’s just one kind of folks.” Atticus later acknowledges Scout, and how “it took an eight year old child to bring ‘em to their senses.” (210) This scene is considered ironic in the way a little girl was able to break up a huge mob. Children aren’t expected to be so smart in their ways of the world, but Scout proves that she

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Experts have argued that a fifteen or sixteen-year-old young boy or girl is not as developed in their thinking or actions as an adult. An individual at the age of adolescents will not behave or think in the same way that someone in the middle adulthood stage of life will think. Defining who is a juvenile based on age has its

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She resorts to looking in the crowd and seeing Mr. Cunningham. She talks to him like in a normal setting. This shows Scout’s innocence by bringing up Mr. Cunningham son when he is trying to lynch a man. Atticus tries to teach his children his ways and what is going on in the world around them but Scout’s innocence hold her back from

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When looking at a story, a child can often reveal oversights that an adult can not. Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird, uses her characters of Scout, Miss. Caroline, Calpurnia, and Mr. Dolphus Raymond to highlight an outside view of adult community through Scout’s narration. In the book, Scout encounters three situations where her child perspective shapes how the reader understands and interprets these adult situations: Calpurnia’s change in demeanour when at the Negro church, Miss.

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For example, a man has responsibilities and thus has many attachments to society such as family, friends, and even career. A child has yet to be corrupted with society 's seed and cannot understand it. Thus, a child has an easier chance to separate from

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If a person is older, the more memories and habits he has. Children usually ask adult not because they usually have more knowledge, but they have more experience. More experience to an ordinary child is a wonder. However, many adults have had the time to realize that time does not mean wisdom, but how one uses time as wisdom. The majority of Donald Trump supporters are old, hysterical women.

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(Chapter 23). Scout also feels pressured to act like a “proper” girl, which she finds frustrating. But even though she faces tough times, Scout’s curiosity and strength help her learn important lessons about fairness and

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This piece of characterization portrays that Scout is learning more about the world, and she is losing some of her childish innocence in the process. Using irony and

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At the start of the book, Scout doesn’t have the best idea of what the world around her really is, slowly but surely, she learns and listens through things that happen to her throughout the story. Earlier on, Scout still conveys determination, Jem picks on her quite a lot for ‘turning more into a girl’, “I swear, Scout, sometimes you act so much like a girl it's mortifyin',” (Jem, pg 50), but despite Jem picking on her, she went through everything with Jem and Dill. She faced her fears, she went along with Jem to read to cranky Mrs. Dubose for a whole month and was always there when something about the Radleys was brought up, from all these experiences came a lesson to Scout and factored into her maturation. One of the most important exchanges in the book was when Miss Maudie and Atticus explained to Scout why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird (Miss Maudie, pg 119). Scout takes what Miss Maudie told her into account and brings it up wisely in Boo’s defense.

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Scout still acts proper despite Mrs. Meriweather's rude comments about Atticus and the Tom Robinson case. Thus, she can control her words and actions while grasping the idea that

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She knows she is “far too old and too big” to be fighting with the other children, but claims that they make her forget (Lee 99). Scout believes that there is “one kind of folks. Folks” (Lee 304). She is physically and mentally maturing, but not enough to know that in the grown world there are different types of people. She is still seeing the world through a child’s eyes where all people are the same no matter what they are doing or what they look like.

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She doesn’t understand why Atticus would do something that nobody wants him to do. Atticus explains that he needs to do it because everyone deserves a chance to win and he believes it’s the right thing to do. Scout learns maturity from this because she sees that he is not willing to follow others views, but he is thinking for himself. The next way that Scout’s maturity is influenced by Atticus is right after he shoots the mad dog coming down the street. That action impresses Scout when he did that, but also surprises her.

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Another example of Scout is when is trying to understand why it's wrong to defend a black person. is when Scout is trying to understand why it was so wrong for a person to defend a black person. She as a young child wondered why it’s so wrong to think and act that way. She is trying and maturing as she goes and is changing the way she is thinking. She is realizing that she is maturing from herself and with the help of others.

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In spite of Scout’s inability to fully comprehend the significance of what Atticus is doing for Tom, she readies herself to defend Atticus, which ultimately portrays that she does not regard society’s expectations on how she should

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They both experience the good and the bad. They are also both intertwined with each other. Even when as a child sometimes take adult decisions. Then there are the times when as an adult you have to let your inner child take the action. Next as an adult they have to make firm decisions.

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