Scout's Childhood

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To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee shows that even in confusing situations, children understand the world as well as adults. Scout is a very intelligent young girl, and understands a lot about adult situations and the confusing world around her. As Atticus talks with Uncle Jack after the family party about the Tom Robinson and Bob Ewell court case, about how it is a black man’s word against a white man’s word. Atticus hopes that Jem and Scout will be able to get through all the awful things that are coming their family’s way while still keeping their pride. Scout starts to listen to their conversation and doesn’t think anyone knows she is there, but at the end of the conversation, Atticus tells Scout to go to bed which indicates that he …show more content…

When Dill ran away from home, he comes to the Finch house, but didn’t let anyone know where he was. Jem thinks that Dill should let someone know where he is, but Dill doesn’t want to. “‘You ought to let your mom know where you are’, said Jem…..Then he rose and broke the remaining code of our childhood” (Lee, 187). Jem knows that if Dill doesn’t let his mom know where he is, she would worry about him which will get Jem, Dill, and Scout in trouble for keeping Dill’s whereabouts a secret. This is similar to when scout doesn’t want to be a lady. That sometimes the right thing to do is not the likeable one. Scout doesn’t want to learn to be and act like a lady, but when Arthur Radley asks her to take him home, she holds his arm and leads him home like a lady would do, as if she has known him for all her life. “ He had to stoop a little to accommodate me, but if Miss Stephanie Crawford was watching from her upstairs window, she would see Arthur Radley escorting me down the sidewalk, as any gentleman would do” (Lee 373). Scout is now learning what it is like to be a lady, and that Boo Radley probably doesn’t know how to be a gentleman, so she taught him and made him as well as herself look respectful and proper like a lady and a gentleman are. Due to Scout’s intelligence and understanding of the way the world works, and knowledge about her town and the people that live in it, she proves that children understand the world as well as adults

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