Scout Finch Innocence

When a child sees evil for the first time, a piece of their innocence is forever lost. Harper Lee shows this concept of innocence lost because of iniquity through the young Scout. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee tells the story of Scout Finch, a young innocent child, and her coming of age encounters with racial prejudice and inequality. Scout starts as an innocent little girl, but when her father Atticus, a lawyer, is appointed to defend Tom Robinson, a black man accused of rape, she, her older brother Jem, and their friend Dill begin to realize that their society and justice system is deeply flawed. Harper Lee uses Scouts innocent point of view and the trial of Tom Robinson to demonstrate that racism and inequality force innocent children to acknowledge the harsh reality of a …show more content…
After Scout, Jem, and Dill attend the trial many people, including their aunt Alexandria, disapprove of Atticus’ decision to let them attend the trial. Atticus responds to his sister’s disapproval by saying “This is their home, sister. We’ve made it this way for them, they might as well learn to cope with it” (Lee 180.) Atticus is defending his decision by saying that the kids live in an unfair world because the people in it have made it like that. He is pointing out the hypocrisy in the people of Maycomb County who are racist all the time, but then act like the things the kids see in the court are somehow worse than the words that come out of their own mouths. Atticus believes that unless the world is fair, there is no point trying to shelter kids from these things that they will one day face themselves. Therefore, Lee uses Atticus’s quote to suggest that our communities have a responsibility to protect children and try to create a better society, instead of trying to shelter them from the bad things they have caused the children to