Theme Of Maturity In To Kill A Mockingbird

The book, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee is written from a young girl's perspective. We get the chance take a step into her life. Her name is Jean Louise Finch but she likes to go by the nickname of Scout. She lives in Alabama in the town of Macomb with her brother Jem and their widowed father Atticus. In the time period the book takes place in Maycomb is suffering from the Great Depression, but their father Atticus is a lawyer's so their family is not as poor as many of the other families in the story. Scout is a very smart girl and according to the time period she is in also a tomboy. As the story goes on, Scout’s character is tested by the hatred and discrimination that began during Tom Robinson’s court case. Scout eventually takes on a more grown-up perspective that allowed her to become more aware of the good in people without being

ignorant to evil within people.

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee explored the construction of maturity and perspective through the elements of setting and point of view.

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee explores the construction of maturity and perspective through the element of settings. Towards the beginning of this novel we got a very vivid glimpse into the neighbors of the Finch family. Right away we can tell that not everyone is as fortunate as the Finch family. In the time of this novel many are still suffering from the great depression in which leads them not to have much of anything. In the novel it states, “Catching Walter Cunningham in the schoolyard gave me great pleasure…”. This shows that Scout towards the beginning of the novel Scout was in fact very childish and found “pleasure” in messing with someone who was smaller and helpless. During this part of the novel Scout indulged in things like this very frequently and had a very

hard time resisting herself when situations like this occurred. As a result of her getting into many altercations with Walter Jem decided to invite him over for lunch as a peace gesture, and although that was the approach Jem was trying to take Scout continued to pick with Walter. This provoke her to get the third degree from Calpurnia and even Atticus when he found out she had been fighting. This advice stuck with her throughout the book and as she became older. Towards the end of the story Scout’s feelings towards Walter had a complete turn around. This is evident when she states, “Soon’s school starts I’m gonna ask Walter home to dinner” At this point Scout forgets all her plans to beat him up. As mentioned before during this time Maycomb is going through the great depression. This makes Scout realize that everyone is not gone to be the same and have equal opportunities as she does. With this she has matured as a character in the sense that she will no longer pick on or tease him for the inevitable lifestyle he is accustomed to.
Secondly in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee explores the construction of maturity and perspective through the element of point of view through a different aspect. Scout Finch is a very young and free minded person. She was raised without a mother for majority of her life. She was raised by her widowed father Atticus. She also had a older brother named Jem who was a very influential person in her life. As a result of this Scout was more of a tomboy than she was a girl. She liked it this way not to mention this was not how women in that time period would dress. Scout’s aunt Alexandra tried to pry this into her brain over and over. Aunt ALexandra has a image in her mind of exactly who she wants Scout to be. This leads Scout to almost despise her aunt for wanting to change the kind of person that she is. In the novel aunt Alexandra move in with the Atticus and the kids as a “feminine influence” which we can tell right away was meant to be towards Scout. In the text it says, “Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire. I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches; when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn't supposed to be doing things that required pants”. This shows that Scout is totally against the ideal women of that time period. As the book progress Scout actually learned from the point of view aunt Alexandra was coming from. She finally seemed to get over herself and infact put on more dresses here and there. Scout changed in this novel not only because she was maturing but from the point of view of aunt Alexandra and the point of view of the society she lived in.

In this novel by Harper Lee we get to see Scouts journey from being this young girl who had her mind made up about the world. She didn’t take into consideration none of the pivotal things around her. These things including racism, discrimination, poverty and many more. For her not to be aware of those things blinded her to the real world resulting in her action showing her high level of ignorant to the society around her. She has come in contact and had to process many of these things as times progresses. Which infact leads her to grow and mature from a child you a young women. Therefore with that being said Harper Lee wrote this novel to show the maturity of Scout the narrator of this book.