Innocent In To Kill A Mockingbird

427 Words2 Pages
In the beginning of the novel, Scout was an innocent, five-year-old girl who had no experience with the evils of the world. She was not like the other girls in Maycomb. Most girls wore dresses and behaved like a lady. However, Scout wore overalls and got into physical fights with other boys her age (Lee 30). She was judged for not representing the ideals of how a lady should present herself. Scout’s aunt, Aunt Alexandra, once told her that she had “grown progressively worse every year” (Lee 108). Scout was sometimes misunderstood and got reprimanded for her actions even though she acted with good intentions. For instance, Scout got scolded for “misbehaving” in class when she tried explaining to Miss Caroline why Walter Cunningham was unable…show more content…
As the novel progresses, Scout is introduced to the evil in the form of racial prejudice. Growing up, Scout had to endure the derogatory remarks directed towards her father for defending a black man. Instead of fighting people who made insulting comments about Atticus, Scout learned how to back away from fights (Lee 100). She gradually began to act more like a young lady. For instance, when she heard the news of Tom's death during Aunt Alexandra’s meeting, Scout concluded "if Aunty could be a lady at a time like this, so could I" (Lee 318). In addition, Scout perception of Boo Radley slowly changed throughout the course of the novel. In the beginning of the book Jem, Dill, and herself tormented Boo by trying to get him to leave his house, and they believed the absurd fabrications about him (Lee 16). As the novel progressed, Scout slowly became less daunted of the Radley Place as she realized that Boo Radley is just a human being (Lee 324). By the end of the novel, Scout matured into a young lady. She learned how to apply her father’s advice of understanding a person by climbing into their skin and walking around it (Lee
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