Scout As A Narrator In To Kill A Mockingbird

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How does using Scout as a narrator influence the readers’ understanding of the characters and themes in To Kill a Mockingbird? To Kill a Mockingbird is a critically acclaimed novel written by Harper Lee and published in 1960. It recounts the life of the ‘tired old town’ Maycomb through the eyes of the young narrator, Scout Finch, and centers around the trial of a black man accused of raping a white woman. Scout Finch is an insightful eight-year-old, easily influenced by her older brother Jem, and daughter to the defending lawyer of Tom Robinson, Atticus Finch, who she views with great admiration and respect. As the narrator, Scout well influences the audience in their interpretation of characters, themes and events of the novel. We experience…show more content…
A major theme of the novel is justice, which Scout has an acute sense of and had been instilled in her by her father. She also lacks the racial prejudice that many of the citizens of Maycomb have, especially during the trial of Tom Robinson. We experience life through Scout’s point of view; her descriptions of people and events have a certain clarity to them, as she is quite innocent and describes things as they appear. As example of this is Scout’s mindset during the trial of Tom Robinson. After Mayella Ewell’s cross examination, Scout comes to the realisation ‘…that Mayella Ewell must have been the lonelist person in the world. She was even lonelier than Boo Radley, who had not been out of the house in twenty-five years.’ (page 221) Scout has a lack of prejudice and an unbiased mentality that allows her to empathise and understand Mayella, despite the girl being on the opposing side of her father’s case. Mr. Dolphus Raymond affirms the idea that a child’s viewpoint of the world is guaranteed to be unhindered by judgment, when he tells Dill and Scout he only pretends to be constantly drunk. Scout asks why he would reveal his secret to them, and he tells them it is ‘because you’re children and you can understand it’. (page 222) By seeing the novel from Scout’s eyes, we are able to experience events, characters and themes without prejudice or
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