To kill a Mocking bird - Essay Example

Task: To kill a Mocking bird To Kill a Mocking bird is a first person narration novel that captures the protagonists’ nature of various characters. Although, there are many characters, this paper will only explore the character Scout and her relationship to various events in the novel.ScoutScout is a little girl with some unusual qualities that are attributable to her social position. She is strangely considerate, intelligent, positive and good. Her thoughtfulness is portrayed by her essential worries of man’s righteousness and evil nature.

Her actions of learning to read prior to joining school demonstrate her intelligence. Additionally, her confidence is evident in her ability to fight boys without any fear. Incidentally, Scout’s actions are dependent on good intentions. This is what makes her good. It is also striking that Scout assume a tomboy status in South Maycomb. This reveals her social identity (Lee 11). All these qualities portrayed by Scout could be traced to her upbringing. Apparently, Atticus, who raised her up had worked tirelessly to ensure that Scout develops a mind and conscience of her own.

He did this by ensuring that Scout steered away from fussy bogging, propriety notions and social hypocrisies. Atticus ensured that Scout did some unusual things such as allowing her to wear overall attires and let Dill and Jem teach her how to climb trees. This is in contrast to what most girls in her position are accustomed. Apparently, girls are supposed to learn manners and wear dresses. Scout is not always concerned with the privileges that come with the social class. For instance, she informs her teacher of the social position of a fellow student, whom she considers too poor to be made to pay the lunch money.

Additionally, Scout is often baffled by some human tendencies. She did not understand why her own teacher should fiercely criticize the prejudices that Hitler orchestrated against the Jews while the same teacher continues to indulge to prejudice against blacks. Although, Atticus succeeded in protecting Scout from social pressure and hypocrisy, this did not prevent her from being open, well meaning and forthright (Lee 82). The author begins the novel by portraying Scout as an innocent, five year old girl who is yet to witness or experience the world’s evils.

However, she later encounters evil as the novel progresses. The author identifies racial prejudices as the most outstanding evil that Scout confronted though it helped build her character. She has a clear conscience and optimism that her contact with this kind of prejudice will not hamper her progress of character development. Apparently, other characters in the novel such as Tom Robinson and Boo Radley have fallen prey to this prejudice as they have been destroyed, bruised and hurt. However, the wisdom that Atticus imparted in her showed her that good would always triumph over evil.

She learns from him that humanity has huge capacities for both good and evil. According to him, the only way to mitigate evil is to approach other people with a viewpoint of understanding and sympathy. Soon Scout develops herself into a person who is capable to assume this outlook. Apparently, this is the climax of the novel because it indicates that no matter what kind of evil Scout encounters, she will let her conscience rule without being jaded or cynical. Though the book ends when she is still a child, her life perspectives remain that of an innocent child who uses her well-groomed and free conscience to do good through to her near grown up age (Lee 30).

Work citedLee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird: 50th Anniversary Edition. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2010. Print.