How Is Scout Finch Rebel Against Society

Albert Camus once said, “Rebellion cannot exist without the feeling that somewhere, in some way, you are justified.” This genius makes it clear that one does not rebel against society unless one feels that it is for the better. This accurately sums up the mindset of both young Scout Finch, the main character of To Kill a Mockingbird, a classic American novel, and Harper Lee, the author, when they made their decisions to go against “the flow” and follow their hearts. Scout Finch goes against the flow by being one of the only people in Maycomb who discounts racism enough to voluntarily associate with black people, and Harper Lee goes against the flow by publishing a controversial novel that does not agree with everyone in America. The author

The first example of Scout Finch associating with black people by choice, despite what the rest of Maycomb thought was when Scout introduces the idea of going to her black nanny, Calpurnia’s house in front of her extremely racist Aunt Alexandria. Aunt Alexandria rejects the idea immediately, much to Scout’s dismay. The text says, “‘You may not. Aunt Alexandria said it. [...] I said, ‘I didn’t ask you!’” [...] ‘You’ve got to do something about her’” (Lee 154-155). By rejecting Scout’s request without any room for compromise, Aunt Alexandria shows that she does not want to have Scout associate with blacks unless it is absolutely necessary because she believes that Scout has too much black influence on her life. This shows Aunt Alexandria is one of the racist citizens of Maycomb. Yet Scout makes it clear that she rejects Aunt Alexandria’s racism when she talks back to her rudely. Scout does not understand or care about the unspoken racial law that her aunt is enforcing: that whites should stay away from blacks if at all possible. However, Scout is racist at one point because of her ignorance. For example, Scout called the black snowman the n-word without knowing what it actually meant. She mostly grew out of her racism. However, her little bit of racist attitude did not impact her decisions to go against the unspoken racial laws to associate with blacks by choice because of the influence of her racially accepting father, Atticus. Another example of Scout making a decision to disregard the unspoken racial laws is when she decides to go to Calpurnia’s church. This was not acceptable by most Maycomb standards, and certainly not acceptable by Aunt Alexandria’s standards. However, Scout made the decision based on what she thought was right. “I told him in detail about our trip to