Moral Growth In To Kill A Mockingbird

Moral Growth of Scout
In Harper Lee’s book To Kill a Mockingbird, most of the younger characters show growth throughout the book and Scout Finch showed the most growth in becoming mature. If it weren’t for her family, acquaintances, and people she saw regularly every day, her personality and growth would have been extremely different. The people that lived in the town of Maycomb had the biggest impact on how Scout grew up and became the person she was.
Slowly throughout the book, Scouts’ matureness increases and one way you can see this is because she starts understanding the way people think and she puts herself in another's shoes. Atticus gives Scout some advice that she needs to use throughout her life and it changes how she reacts to

things and a person's actions. The advice he gave was, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view” “until you climb into his skin and walk around in it”. Atticus is trying to get Scout to look at how other people look at certain situations and try to understand their feelings, don’t just look at how you see things. Near the end of the book, Scout walks around in Boo’s shoes and she realizes that he saw everything they did and understood his feelings more. “Autumn again, and Boo’s children needed him” is what Scout had said when she was flashbacking to the times that Boo saw them. Scout came to realization that Boo could see everything Jem and Scout did once she had been escorted by Boo to his house and she stood by his shutter. He had a great view and even of when Jem and Scout were getting hurt by Mr.Ewell. Another way to tell that Scout was maturing was that she had taken Atticus’s advice by talking to Mr.Cunningham about the things he would want to talk about. She’s beginning to think of others instead of just herself and doings things the way she wants to. “Atticus said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in”. Scout is using Atticus’s advice more and more as the story progresses and just by Scout trying to use his advice makes her seem more grown up. Overall, Scout had matured enough to just try and see how other people take a view on things.
A lot of rumors spread through the small town of Maycomb and Scout begins to see that you can’t believe everything you hear from people because not everything is true.

For instance, Scout always heard that Dolphus Raymond drank whiskey and was a drunk, but later on she finds out this is not true. “You mean all you drink in that sack’s Coca-Cola? Just plain Coca-Cola?” “‘Yes ma’am,’ Mr.Raymond nodded.” If it weren’t for the rumor that was spread about Raymond, then nobody would have thought he was ever a drunk. Scout was shocked and disbelieved when she found out the rumor wasn’t true, but she also finds out that there are reasons why rumors start. Another rumor was about Boo and how he was a scary monster that ate cats, but Scout comes to find in the final chapters that this is not true. “Miss Stephanie Crawford said she woke up in the middle of the night one time and saw him looking straight through the window at her. . .said his head was like a skull lookin’ at her”. Scout at first believed everything she heard from people, but as she grew older and wiser, she started to think about these things instead of believing them right off the bat. Scout had her own opinion about the Tom Robinson case and she didn’t believe all the rumors that were said. This shows that she is becoming her own person and not just going with what everybody wants her to believe. In conclusion, Scout had grown apart from going with what everybody said was true and she started analyzing her own

opinion of things. She had heard enough rumors to figure out that most things people said were not true.
One of the biggest signs that showed of Scout growing up was her trying to become a lady. An act of being a lady is letting the man escort you, so Scout wrapped her arm through Boo’s elbow and let him escort her to his house. “I would lead him through our house, but I would never lead him home”. This quote shows that she has become very ladylike and is letting Boo be the gentlemen that he is.
Scout changes for the better throughout the book and she shows a lot of moral growth. She has begun to understand people much better by taking advice, she realizes she shouldn’t believe everything she hears, and Scout becomes a lady. While Scout grew up, she learned a lot of things needed in life and it’s all just a part of growing up.