To Kill A Mockingbird Scout's Childhood

Scout was the main character and narrator of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. The book follows a little girl through many circumstances that will effect her own viewpoint, along with her brothers and Dill’s. Scout being a child and a girl comes across many discriminations and is not always told the full story. Scout is a shows being very tough, tomboyish, young, girl throughout the whole book. Scout is a little girl

Scout is a young girl who’s the narrator of To Kill A Mockingbird.

“But why had he entrusted us with his deepest secret? I asked him why. "Because you're children and you can understand it," he said, "and because I heard that one-" He jerked his head at Dill: "Things haven't caught up with that one's instinct yet. Let him

Maybe things'll strike him as being—not quite right, say, but he won't cry, not when he gets a few years on him" (201).

Growing up, for Scout, means no more crying uncontrollably at displays of injustice. Jean Louise is told she is too young to understand, it is correct. She is a very young, somewhat naive, girl and does not quite know what it is like to be an adult. “... the business section of Maycomb drew us frequently up the street past the real property of Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose. It was impossible to go to town without passing her house unless we wished to walk a mile out of the way. Previous minor encounters with her left me with no desire for more, but Jem said I had to grow up some time” (99). When Scout was much younger it was not a big deal to go and walk out of the way. But now that she is growing up it means that she has to face the unpleasant things instead of avoiding 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” (39). She believes from an early age that girl things are bad and that the boy things are good. Jean thinks that she can avoid the ‘badness’ of girls by not acting like one. In Scouts head it is less a matter of what she's born with and more a matter of what she does. “[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” (115). Being a girl, for Scout, happens when she fails to live up to Jem's standards of what a person should be. While watching Calpurnia Scout realizes that being a girl, actually, involves a lot of good things. “I felt the starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on me, and for the second time in my life I thought of running away. Immediately” (14.24). Scout doesn’t like the fact she has to wear dresses and would rather wear overalls. Femininity and being a little girl go hand in hand for Scout. She doesn’t wish to be feminine but soon realizes it's not all too