How Does Scout Lose Innocence In To Kill A Mockingbird

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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a novel set in the 1930’s in the fictional of Maycomb, Alabama. It mainly focuses on racial discrimination and social injustice in the South while being told through the perspective of an elementary school aged girl named Jean Louise Finch who goes by “Scout”. Scout is a very intriguing character as she is smart for her age, but lacks understanding of human nature. With a lawyer father that defends Blacks when Scout hears insults directed toward her father she gets into fights to deny that racism exists. As the book goes on Scout comes to acceptance that racism and evil exist which causes her to lose innocence.

One night while Scout is eating dinner with her brother Jem and Dill their neighbor they start
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It starts one evening when Scout hears racist remarks made towards Atticus. One evening she ask him “What exactly is a N****r-lover?” (Lee-124). Scout asked Atticus this because even though she didn't know what it meant she assumed that it was not a compliment towards Atticus, but an insult towards him. This is a turning point in the story where Scout starts to mature and realizes that the whole Finch family has targets on their back for taking the case. With all the heat Atticus takes for the case Scout comes to a conclusion that society is much different than she thinks. Atticus heads out of town for business one weekend which leaves Scout and Jem with Calpurnia who is the Finch’s maid/housekeeper. Sunday morning Calpurnia take Jem and Scout to the First Purchase church which is where all the blacks in the story go to church at. They are meet with mixed reactions as they walk in the church with some people welcoming them with open arms and others like Lulu who asked Calpurnia “I wants to know why you bringin’ white chillun to a n****r church?” (Lee-135). This is an eye opening moment for Scout because now she has been thrown into the middle of the race war between Whites and Blacks which gives her a better understanding of what’s happened to Tom and why Atticus is insulted for helping Blacks. Scout and Jem have disagreements the vast majority of brothers and sisters, but with Scout having a history of punching people and doing what is considered not ladylike Scout tends to get rowdy when she gets worked up by somebody. Jem and Scout during a disagreement get very violent and this is what Scout had to say about it “What had began as a fist fight became a brawl We were still struggling when Atticus separated us.” (Lee-157). Scout learns from this because not only did

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