To Kill A Mockingbird Perspective Essay

Understanding perspective plays a central, critical role in “To Kill A Mockingbird”. Lack of understanding is the cause of many of the main conflicts in the story. Understanding resolves these conflicts and makes the characters involved more mature and morally developed. Scout’s journey in To Kill A Mockingbird is closely tied to her understanding of other perspectives. At the beginning of the story, Scout is only six years old and displays immaturity typical of a child her age. Scout cannot understand the perspective of people who are poorer than her; she is very privileged and educated for a child growing up in the South during the Depression. She beats Walter Cunningham after school for embarrassing her when she was the one who stood up to Miss Caroline and defended him and his family’s destitution. Jem invites him to dinner as a peace offering to make up for Scout’s behavior. Scout is then confused when he pours syrup on his food at dinner. “‘But he’s gone and drowned his dinner in syrup,’ I protested. ‘He’s poured it all over-’” (32). Calpurnia scolds Scout, saying “‘there’s some folks who don’t eat like us, but you ain’t called on to contradict ‘em at the table when they don’t’” (32). Calpurnia is trying to teach Scout to …show more content…
Maudie is despised by the ‘foot-washing Baptists’ who make up most of the town. “‘Foot-washers believe anything that’s pleasure is a sin’” (59). They label Miss Maudie as godless because she apparently does not spend enough time reading the Bible. They also discriminate against her entire gender; “‘foot-washers think women are a sin by definition’” (59). The foot-washers think people like Maudie are depraved on principle; they do not care at all about Maudie’s perspective. This conflict exposes a larger rift in understanding perspective between the strictly conservative population and the slowly emerging liberal people like Maudie and