Character Analysis of Scout In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Scout serves a central role in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. As a young girl with the courage to stand up for herself, even when it means getting into fistfights with boys, she allows the audience to see some of the truly grotesque actions that take place in the book. She also gives the audience a moral perspective that does not rely on drawn out arguments on morality. Instead, she has gut reactions to all forms of injustice. When faced with morally ambiguous circumstances, however, she often stops to consider how her actions will impact others.

Scout's Courage

The foundation of Scout's morality and courage come from her father, Atticus. Atticus uses a hands-off parenting style that allows Scout to explore the world and learn things on her own. Many girls her age are taught how to behave properly. Atticus seems more concerned with letting Scout learn how to live rightly. She does not have a firm grasp of social mores, but she has an underlying sincerity that trumps the fear that drives bigots to condemn a man without sufficient evidence. Lacking the social niceties, she can sometimes seem rude when interacting with other people. Any rudeness, however, comes from an inner innocence that drives her to treat people without pre-judging them or taking anything for granted.

Important Characters Supporting Scout

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee has crafted a story which effectively explodes stereotypes and mounts an assault on the type of negative social constructions of race and racism which she sees in society. The most effective way that Lee does this is through the utilization of her characters. In forcing her positively constructed characters to confront the circumstances of social injustice, Lee creates clearly defined conflicts of good and evil, righteous and wrong, with those perpetrators of racism and hate falling squarely on the wrong side. The following are the characters that Lee uses to flush out racism and hate by juxtaposing them against these evils:

• Atticus
• Tom
• Scout