To Kill a Mockingbird: Scout Finch Analysis Essay

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a story about the loss of innocence. The novel tells the journey of Scout accepting that racism exists and that acceptance is what causes her to lose her innocence. Scout, Jem, and Dill sneak into the courthouse to watch Atticus defend Tom Robinson. Scout learns that just because Tom is innocent he is still sent to prison because of the unsubstantiated claims that the witnesses have said about him. In a jury filled with white townsfolk, Tom Robinson, a black man, didn’t have a chance at winning the trial. When Dill and Scout leave the courthouse because the trial seemed like too much for Dill to handle, Mr. Raymond walks up to them and joins in on a conversation. While talking, Mr. Raymond explains that Scout has a lot to learn and tells her about how prejudiced the town is, “I don’t reckon it’s—Miss Jean Louise, you don’t know your pa’s not a run-of-the-mill man, it’ll take a few years for that to sink in—you haven’t seen enough of the world yet. You haven’t even seen this town, but all you gotta do is step back inside the courthouse,”(Lee 269). Throughout the novel, Scout learns many life lessons from the adults around her as she matures. Through several losses of innocence, she gains new perspectives on how the world works.

Not all of Scout's experiences cause a negative loss of innocence, for example when she meets Arthur “Boo” Radley for the first time after Bob Ewell tries to attack Jem and Scout. At the beginning of the novel, Scout is told ghost stories of Boo Radley, because of her innocence she believed these stories but when she finally meets Arthur Radley her fear of him caused by innocence becomes understanding. When Scout walks to the Radley place with Arthur she explains “Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad,”(Lee 373). Boo’s story represents Scout's innocent child mind. The children giving him the name “Boo” is a way of showing that he is in a way a ghost story. By the end of the novel, Scout realizes that the rumors aren't true and Arthur Radley is a human being that was mistreated by the town for no good reason. Scout loses her innocence throughout the story which causes her to mature and learn the truth about the good and bad that is in the world.