Essay/Term paper: To kill a mockingbird: scout's development

Essay, term paper, research paper:  To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill A Mockingbird: Scout's Development


"Select a novel studied by you where at least one of the principal characters is
a young person. Discuss what you consider to be the most important influence in
the novel in helping that young person to develop."

Jean-Louise Finch (Scout) is the main character in Harper Lee's "To kill a
mockingbird". She is a young girl who matures in the course of the novel. The
most important influence in her development is clearly her father, Atticus.

Unlike almost all other adults in Scout's environment, he is not in any way
prejudiced against the black population of Maycomb, a small American town in
the 1930's in which all the novel's happenings take place. He tries to instill
his beliefs of the equality of all people in his daughter and his son, Jem, in
many discussions, he for instance states that whenever a white man cheats a
black man, the white man is "trash". He is very modest, which is shown in an
incident in which he is asked to shoot a mad dog, which he manages to do with
one precise shot, yet he never told his children of his great talent for
marksmanship, and does not go hunting because he thinks it gives him an unfair
advantage over other living things.

The main event of the novel is a trial, in which Atticus is the defendant's
lawyer, against a black man who has been falsely accused of raping a white
woman. Atticus does his best to prove Tom Robinson's innocence, to a degree
where any objective jury would surely have found him not guilty, but it
sentences him to death, as it is expected to do by the general populace. Prior
to the trial, Scout and Jem are mocked by other children at school, which have
been told by their parents that Atticus will defend the offending black man.
Simply bearing this, as Atticus tells them to, instead of retaliating it
physically, which would have been a much more childlike behaviour, is also a
learning experience for them both. Towards the end of the novel, Atticus's
belief in the good in mankind is shattered, namely when the allegedly raped
girl's father, Bob Ewell, tries to murder Jem and Scout.