Character Analysis of Scout Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird”
In the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Scout Finch is the protagonist and also the narrator who describes events from her perspective. Scout is a smart and witty girl. Sometimes, she behaves in a boyish way because she fights with boys with a lot of confidence. The upbringing that Scout was given by the Atticus make her a tomboy. Atticus is the one who nurtured Scout’s personality. At the beginning of the novel, Scout Finch is a fragile young girl who appears not to know about the evil of the surrounding society. As she grows up, Scout faces the fundamental injustice of racial discrimination. Nevertheless, she learns that it is more important to find something good in our world. Throughout this essay, I will analyze the character traits of Scout Finch, and describe how her character changes, influences others and grow throughout this story.
Scout is a very unique little girl, both in her attributes and in her social position. Her uniqueness is realized in the way she is unusually intelligent as she learns to read even before joining the school. She also portrays unusual thoughtfulness in the way she worries about the fundamental goodness and evil of humankind. Scout always acts with the best intentions, which proves how she is unusually good. Concerning her social identity, Scout is unusual for being a tomboy in the prim and proper southern world of Maycomb. Scout reflects on this when she says, “Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it” (Lee, 5). The reader of “To Kill a Mockingbird” quickly realizes that Scout is who she is because of how Atticus has raised her. Scout’s father, Atticus has nurtured her mind, conscience and individuality without sinking her to worrying social pretence and notions of propriety. A majority of girls in Scouts position would be wearing dresses and learning manners but for Scout, Atticus has brought her up with a “do not touch parenting style.” Scout unlike other girls wears overalls and climbs trees with Jem and Dill. Social niceties are not Scout’s privilege as she tells her teacher that one of her fellow students is too poor to pay her back for lunch. Besides, Scout seems to be baffled by human behavior, for instance when one of her teachers criticizes Hitler’s stereotype for Jews while indulging in her hatred against blacks. Scout has also been rendered open, frank, and well-meaning by his father’s protection from social pressure and hypocrisy.
As the novel opens, we see Scout as an innocent, good-hearted five- year- old girl who is naïve about the evil deeds of the world. As the story progresses, Scout experiences her first contact with evil in the form of racial discrimination. This she learns when Atticus tells Jem that, “the one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any colour of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box” (Lee 295). The basic development of her character at this point is led by the question of whether she will get out of that contact with her conscience and optimism in place or whether she will be destroyed. Atticus’s wise advice helps Scout to understand that although humanity has a great capacity for evil, it also has a great capacity for good. Scout also learns from Atticus’s wisdom that the evil can often be mitigated if one approaches others sympathetically and with understanding. As she develops into a person capable of assuming a sympathetic and understanding outlook, the novel comes to an end and the reader learns that whatever evil Scout faces, she will retain her conscience without turning into a callous or cynic person. At the end of the book, although Scout is still a child her perspective of life develops from that of an innocent child into that of an almost grownup.
Throughout this novel, Scout experiences many issues but the most disturbing question is the question of what it means to be a lady since she is a tomboy. Sometimes, she is criticized by her brother for acting like a girl, while at other times he laments that Scout is not girlish enough. Although Dill wants to marry Scout, he does not want to spend time with her. Scout’s strength intimidates many of the bots in school yet she is always reminded that she must learn to handle herself in a lady-like manner. It is even surprising that women in her life demand more conservative requirements on her than men do. For instance, Aunt Alexandria seems more distracted by Scout’s tomboyish life. Besides, Miss Caroline is perturbed by the openness and outspokenness of Scout and terms it as impertinent. Ironically, her father, Atticus who she most wants to please is not even concerned about her acting in a particular way. Another lesson that Scout learns and incorporates in her perspective of the world is the importance of walking in someone else’s shoes. As we can see in the novel, Atticus starts to teach Scout the importance of looking at things from the other person’s perspective very early in the story. Atticus tells Scout, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it” (Lee, 36). As the story comes to the end, Scout can put herself in Boo Radley’s shoes, the person she feared the most throughout the whole story.
Throughout one’s life, growing up is one of the hardest, as well as one of the most significant parts. While growing up should be fun to every kid, in Scout’s situation learning about the cruelty and the reality she is living in is not fun at all. As the story advances, Scout faces several emotional changes due to different events that occur. For the first time in her life, Scout starts to learn the unfairness that exists between different races and the engulfing discrimination at the time. Various events taking place throughout this novel point out and prove how Scout changes and matures. For example, when Scout says, “Atticus had promised me he would wear me out if he ever heard of me fighting any more; I was far too old and too big for such childish things, and the sooner I learned to hold in, the better off everybody would be” (Lee, 116). This statement shows how Atticus tells Scout to start maturing and mind about more relevant things and Scout listens, understands and takes immediate action. She starts to think about her father’s advice to her and realizes that fighting for such immature and irrelevant things is not worth it for her life. She realizes that there are bigger issues in life than that. She further understands that the less she fights the better off people would be.
To conclude, Scout Finch in the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” functions as both questioner and observer. She can ask tough questions which are not politically correct but since she is a kid she can ask these questions. As a little kid, Scout does not fully understand the implications of things taking place around her and this makes her an objective observer and a truly sensible reporter.
Works Cited
Lee, Harper. To kill a mockingbird. Random House, 2010.