Skip to main content

What are some quotes from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird that depict Scout's "awakening" or coming-of-age?

There are several significant quotes that portray Scout's "awakening" or coming-of-age. Following the Tom Robinson trial, Scout begins to notice and recognize the hypocritical nature of Maycomb's citizens. In Chapter 26, Scout's third-grade teacher Miss Gates shows sympathy for the Jews in Europe and comments that there is no prejudice in America. Scout realizes that her teacher is being hypocritical, and says to Jem,



"I heard her say it’s time somebody taught ’em a lesson, they were gettin’ way above themselves, an’ the next thing they think they can do is marry us. Jem, how can you hate Hitler so bad an’ then turn around and be ugly about folks right at home—" (Lee 152).



Following Bob Ewell's vicious attack, Arthur "Boo" Radley carries Jem home, then Dr. Reynolds and Sheriff Tate arrive at the Finch residence. After Scout is introduced to Boo for the first time, Sheriff Tate indirectly informs Atticus that Boo stabbed and killed Bob Ewell with Bob's knife during the struggle. Sheriff Tate tells Atticus that he refuses to disclose Boo's heroic actions to the community because it would bring unwanted attention on Boo. Sheriff Tate comments that it would be a sin to put Boo and his shy ways into the limelight. When Atticus looks down at Scout and asks her if she understands, Scout says,



"Well, it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?" (Lee 169).



Scout's ability to metaphorically compare an earlier lesson about the importance of protecting innocent mockingbirds and apply it to Boo's situation depicts her maturation and moral development.


In Chapter 31, Scout walks Boo Radley home and stands on his porch, looking out towards the neighborhood. Scout sees Maycomb from Boo's perspective and comments,



"Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad" (Lee 171).



Scout finally sees Boo Radley as the shy, magnanimous individual that he is, instead of viewing him as the "malevolent phantom" like she did earlier in the novel. Her ability to recognize Boo's true nature and view Maycomb from his point of view depicts Scout's coming-of-age and moral development.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more