Literary Analysis To Kill a Mockingbird PDF

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Experience vs. Innocence: An Impossible Balancing Act A Literary Analysis on To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a classic novel about the dynamics of living in a small town. Set in the 1960s, this novel depicts the stereotypical small town for this particular time period. Compassion versus cruelty, love versus hate, and innocence versus experience are all extremes expressed in this book. As you transition from a child to a young adult, you lose your childhood innocence through the influences of your friends, family, and peers. The community one grows up in will ultimately shape who a person becomes as an adult. Scout Finch is the narrator of this book; we see life in Maycomb County through her eyes as she grows up. We see Scout’s innocence fade as she learns and experiences more of the true Maycomb while transitioning from a child to a pre-teen. As she watches the trial of Tom Robinson, she believes he is innocent and will walk, declared not guilty of a terrible crime. That, however, is not the case. Tom is convicted and is later shot and killed as he attempts to escape from prison. Scout does not understand how the jury could convict him when his innocence was clear. This is when Scout begins to learn of the evident racism problem in Maycomb. She also doesn’t understand why her Aunt Alexandra makes rude remarks regarding other families and how their pasts carry over to the present. Aunt Alexandra is representing the stereotypical small town lady; most of the other ladies in Maycomb are like her, so Scout is often exposed to degrading and derogatory remarks aimed at other community members. Scout also refuses to believe that there are different kinds of people, (regarding their morals and values), and actually has an argument with Jem about the subject. Jem insists that there are many kinds of folks; Scout rebuttals and says that she “thinks there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.” This shows how little she’s seen, and how her innocence leaves her hung up on the belief that everyone is good and just, like Atticus, whom she adores. Atticus seems relieved that her innocence is remaining intact because it mean she hasn’t succumbed to Maycomb’s cultural norms of prejudice and racism. Atticus tries to teach Scout throughout the book to see how others view things, and to be open minded about everything she observes. At the end of the book, we see how her experiences have stripped her of some of her innocence. She develops a real understanding of the phrase “put yourself in someone else’s shoes” once she is standing on Boo Radley’s porch. She’d been so full of wonder and fear about him, only to realize he was not worthy of fear, but of friendship and admiration. Scout also doesn’t question why Bob Ewell came after her and Jem; by this time she has come to terms with and accepted that there are cruel people in Maycomb who do terrible, unnecessary things. Scout has gained plenty of knowledge by the end of the book, but this is at the cost of some of her innocence. Jem Finch begins the book playing innocently with his neighbour’s nephew Dill and his little sister Scout. He is still a child at the beginning of the book; he has not yet begun to transition into a young adult. One mature quality we see Jem displaying throughout the book is his instinct to protect his little sister. He demonstrates this characteristic strongly when he risks his life for Scout at the end of the book, and ends up injured in the process. However, we also see his naivety when he is very upset about Tom Robinson’s sentencing. He refuses to accept the prosecution as fact and as the expected outcome of the situation. Jem begins to lose his innocence as we get deeper into the book and Tom Robinson’s fate has been determined. When Mrs. Dubose states that Atticus is “no better than the niggers and trash he works for”, Jem reacts immaturely because it is an opinion he’s been hearing voiced quite often. He acts impulsively, destroying Mrs. Dubose’s camellia bushes with Scout’s new baton and then breaking the baton and pushing Scout when she tries to get him to leave. He later grows to disregard such comments; he doesn’t let the opinions and insults of others get an impulsive reaction out of him. Near the end of the book, we see just how much of his childhood innocence is gone when he tries to explain to Scout that there are just bad people. Jem explains that some people are just cruel, but that he thought the same about people when he was her age. This demonstrates how Jem is aware that there are bad people in the world; even in

Maycomb. Jem also states that he thinks he understands why Boo Radley has stayed inside his house all through the years. He hypothesizes that Boo stays inside because he wants to. Jem’s insight about such things is a result of his experiences and understandings that took away his innocence as a child, and began turning him into a young adult. We don’t directly meet the “infamous” Boo Radley until the end of the novel. We hear many stories and rumours via Scout throughout the whole book. In the beginning, we learn that Boo’s trouble first began when he got involved with the wrong crowd of friends. Boo and his friends cruised around one night and were very mischievous; breaking into places, locking an authority figure in the courthouse house, and resisting arrest. After this incident, the judge decided it would be best to send all the boys involved to an industrial school. Mr. Radley, Boo’s father, didn’t like the idea and promised to keep Boo out of trouble if he could keep him at home. The other boys got the best secondary education in the state; Boo wasn’t seen again for 15 years. Years later, (according to a community member by the name of Miss Stephanie), Boo stabbed his father in the leg with scissors for no apparent reason. Boo was 33 at the time. All these events resulted in cruel rumours being created by community members. The rumours made Boo out to be a creature of nightmares. They believed him to be a savage; a psycho of sorts. Children were terrified of him. Jem, Scout, and Dill created their own image of Boo whilst playing a game; their version of Boo was six feet tall, had bloodstained hands, and rotting teeth. Boo was shunned by most of Maycomb for his supposedly violent acts. However, we learn that Boo is not, in fact, a vicious, uncivilized man. When Miss Maudie’s house catches on fire and Scout is standing outside in the street watching, Boo comes out and places a blanket over Scout’s shoulders because she is shivering from the cold. Scout doesn’t realize that Boo was responsible for the blanket until Jem tells her and Atticus so. Yet the most significant indicator of Boo’s character occurs at the very end of the book. Boo saves Jem and Scout from Bob Ewell; an act that shows how heroic and selfless he really is. He risks his life to save the lives of two children he has never been formally acquainted with. Perhaps Boo has watched out for Jem and Scout because he wished to preserve and protect their childhood innocence due to losing his early on in his own life. He wanted to shelter them from the evil he knew was out in Maycomb and the cruelty he knew the people of Maycomb were capable of. Maybe Boo was good at recognizing this evil because he had observed it many times; specifically in his own father. For instance: “Nobody knew what form of intimidation Mr. Radley employed to keep Boo out of sight, but Jem figured that Mr. Radley kept him chained to the bed most of the time. Atticus said no, it wasn’t that sort of thing, that there are other ways of making people ghosts.” It would be difficult to believe that there wasn’t some form of abuse by Mr. Radley involved with the isolation of Boo, for we see the lasting effects of Boo’s isolation from Maycomb for many years, even after Mr. Radley’s death. When Scout finally meets Boo face to face, he appears very anxious. He is socially awkward to the extreme; a result of being unexposed to social interaction for many years. Boo is an example of how the cruel nature of humans can shape a child into a fearful, nervous adult, and tear a child’s innocence away from them much too quickly. As children, we are innocent beings who believe all people to be good. We grow to understand that this is not the case through life experiences and influences by friends, family, and the rest of a community. Every single human goes through this adventure, whether it is sooner or later in childhood. In To Kill a Mockingbird, we see varying degrees of lost innocence and events that precede this draining of innocence, (in Scout, Jem, and Boo specifically.) To become a young adult, your naivety you had as a child must be crushed, and you have to realize that there is cruelty present in the world alongside compassion. Once we understand this concept, we are no longer children, and our friends, family, and peers no longer shape us as much as they did previously. The transition made from child to young adult can be summarized with this point: experience cannot be gained without innocence being lost....