To Kill A Mockingbird Escapism Essay

Escapism is defined as employing a series of distraction or ignorance strategies as a coping mechanism to avoid an unpleasant reality. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee illustrates the story of Scout’s role as a citizen of Maycomb County, and how her life seems to unravel as important and traumatic events occur. This essay explores how Scout perceives the world, and how her environment and family have greatly influenced her views, for better or for worse. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout does not yet understand how to develop a view of the world. She has been taught by Atticus to be blinded by the opaque rose colored glasses that have been taped in front of her eyes. But by reading “Good Bones” by Maggie Smith, Scout will learn that her father isn’t someone to

Secondly, Scouts should learn the importance of developing their own independent views on her surroundings and herself. She should also learn the importance of keeping her optimistic view balanced with reality, a tactic many characters in the book tend to struggle with. While escapism can sometimes serve as a form of reverie and aid mental health, the cases depicted in the book demonstrate the opposite effect. Throughout the entirety of To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee, while perhaps unintentionally, shows the effects of toxic positivity and the escapism of reality through unhealthy coping mechanisms for the trauma experienced. Scouts do not understand how the world works. Her worldview is extremely limited, with a naivety and blindness to the world around her. With Atticus Finch’s sheltering of her and Jem, she knows no life other than one based on the points of view of a narrow group of her family and a few friends, who use euphemisms to blunt the sharpness of the world around her. In the poem Good Bones, Smith writes, “I am trying to sell them to the world,” (Smith