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What Does Scout Learn In To Kill A Mockingbird

745 Words3 Pages

Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird is full of a profuse amount life lessons. Scout, the main character, is always finding herself in situations where she can learn a thing or two. These life lessons include one should not assume to know another person, one should never let someone get to them, and one should not follow a crowd. Scout learns these when multiple things happen in her town. These lessons are extremely important in contributing to her growth in to the person she will become. One of the lessons Scout learns is one should not assume to know another person. This is displayed in many parts of the book. There are numerous people in her life, such as Boo Radley and even her own father, that Scout should never assume to know. Atticus says, “First of all," he said, "if you can 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 …show more content…

There are many people in Maycomb, Alabama who do things or believe something just because they are afraid of what would be thought of their true opinions. Although Scout and her family are surrounded by people who have a hatred for blacks and believe they should not have rights, Atticus still only believes in what he thinks is right and he teaches his daughter to do just the same. He knows most people of the town conform to others opinions out of cowardry. Atticus explains, “Serving on a jury forces a man to make up his mind and declare himself about something. Men don't like to do that. Sometimes it's unpleasant” (Lee 297). The majority of the people in Maycomb do not want to declare their opinions, especially if their opinions are not like most. Scout learns that conformity may please others, but not herself. This life lesson teaches her that she only has courage if she is able to voice her own opinion and not follow a

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977 Words | 4 Pages

The African-American community of Maycomb respects Atticus for doing his best with what he is given and for treating everyone with respect. Scout may not realize at first why she must stand up while her father is leaving, but since she is sitting with the community of African-Americans, she quickly realizes that it is a sign of respect, and it makes the audience feel proud. On the contrary, Mayella Ewell makes a remark that can lead the audience into thinking a variety of things, one of which is terrifying. While Tom Robinson is giving his testimony and explaining what happened while he was in the Ewell house, he states, “She says what her papa do to her don’t count,” (260). Someone could read this and think that her father is raping her, which is very alarming.

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635 Words | 3 Pages

The big lesson that Atticus teaches her is that you need to always think of something from the others point of view. When he was describing this he said to scout ¨You can't really know a person until you climb into their skin and walk around in it.¨ This quote represents a metaphor that means before you just go right to conclusion saying that you are right. You have to think about it in their point of view and in the end you could both be right. This shows that Scout is coming of age because learning this when you are young and using this concept is amazing for kids her age.

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443 Words | 2 Pages

To conclude, Scout learns many lessons throughout the first five chapters of the book; not judging people’s ways of doing things, considering things from other people’s perspective, and not using rumors to base your opinions about others. These lessons are essential

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485 Words | 2 Pages

To Kill a Mockingbird When you’re a kid, everything you encounter, makes you curious. Especially the stories you get told. It’s difficult to understand that someone is not always a story another person tells. Scout learns this lesson in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

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689 Words | 3 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.

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469 Words | 2 Pages

In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, maturity and learning are one of the more important and highly emphasized topics. Scout, along with some others, undergo this change which the reader can identify multiple times during the story. Although there were a couple of characters that matured and changed throughout the story, Scout is the person that showed the most dramatic change in her behavior, thinking, and actions.

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589 Words | 3 Pages

Atticus passes his wisdom through Scout and Dill and tells them “you never understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (Lee, 85-87). Atticus took a stand against the racism of Maycomb when he defended the Tom Robinson case and experienced the adversity that Maycomb community brought which only strengthened his personal values of justification for Tom Robinson because “the only thing that doesn’t abide

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1260 Words | 6 Pages

In the book To kill a Mockingbird I believe that Scout has grown and learned much during the book. Page 30 scout is beating up Walter Cunningham for starting of her first year of school on the wrong foot. Page 99 Cecil Jacobs calls out Atticus for defending “niggers”, Scout holds herself back from fighting because it is childish and she doesn’t want Atticus to “wear her out”. Page 101 Atticus asks her for his sake not to fight with her fists, but to fight with her head, she takes this into consideration but the thought flies out of her head when she punches her cousin Francis for calling her dad a “nigger lover”on page 110. Scout thinks she’s doing Atticus a favor by defending him, but he says that if she keeps her cool and don’t let it bother

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814 Words | 4 Pages

Initially Scout believes that the family, friends and neighbours she has in Maycomb are all good people, but the trial marks a turning point where she realises that they are also racist and morally questionable. Scout is confused as to why Atticus takes on the case when the town’s attitude is that he “shouldn’t”, and he explains that it’s the right thing to do. When she asks if he’ll win, he says “No” but that he is still going to try. This shows that Atticus is aware of the racist attitudes and history in Maycomb, and recognises that the evil nature of the prosecution will probably win. The outcome of the trial is correctly foreseen by Atticus, but comes as a shock to Scout and Jem, because they previously believed that good and truth and reason would always win.

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1371 Words | 6 Pages

With her new understanding that she should treat everyone equally, she knew that Jem was wrong about them being better than the Cunninghams, and that there isn’t four kinds of ‘folks’ in the Maycomb like Jem says, there’s just one, where everyone should equal ,but that’s not the case in Maycomb. This lesson was important for Scout to learn because it has allowed her to be fair and reasonable. Unlike Scout, most of the people in Maycomb have not learned this lesson. One example of this is when a black man named Tom Robinson was put on trial for being accused of raping a white girl name Mayella Ewell. “Judge Taylor was polling the jury: ‘Guilty…guilty…guilty..guilty…’I peaked at Jem:

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742 Words | 3 Pages

Two travelers, namely Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta, travelled to China independently and while there noted their experiences by writing travel accounts. Although they both went to China, their individual experiences influenced the way they wrote. These individual experiences were primarily driven by differing cultural backgrounds, different time periods and religious beliefs. Marco Polo was born around 1254 in Venice, Europe and was raised Catholic . Marco Polo was privileged and was able to travel to China at the age of 17 with his father and uncle .

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787 Words | 4 Pages

What she learns is slowly taught to her by the people around her and the experiences she has. The first life lesson that Scout encounters is not to judge someone until one really knows them. In this novel the first person that starts to teach Scout a lesson is Atticus,

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988 Words | 4 Pages

As the novel progresses, it is necessary to change perspective on those accused of crimes in order to deteriorate racial prejudice. By examining the characters in Maycomb, it becomes clear that closed-minded people are the source of prejudice because their opinion is incapable of expanding and understanding the purpose of an individual’s true personality. Early in the story, Atticus teaches Scout about having

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710 Words | 3 Pages

In the novel,To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, both Scout and Jem learn many important life lessons as they journey from childhood into young adolescents. One lesson that the children learn deals with empathy. Another lesson that has to do is mockingbirds and why they should never be killed. The third lesson that the children learn is the definition of courage. Finally they learn to not to take advantage of god’s gift.

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852 Words | 4 Pages

Persecution comes from people who are prejudiced” (Lee 329). While this may seem like a useful life lesson, Scout realizes the clear hypocrisy in her lesson. Like every other citizen of Maycomb, she is prejudiced against black people. Even though she is teaching her students that prejudice and persecution is wrong, she is participating in those very activities at home. She heard her third grade teacher after Tom Robinson’s trial, she thought “it’s time somebody taught ‘em a lesson, they were gettin’ way above themselves, an’ the next thing they think they can do is marry us” (Lee 331).

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