“His face was streaked with angry tears as we made our way through the cheerful crowd” (Lee 284). This describes Jem during the point in the story’s plot in which the trial has just ended, depicting the mental torment he experiences after hearing the conviction. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, the theme of the loss of innocence is shown through the perspective of Scout Finch, a young girl who resides in Maycomb County, Alabama with her father, a lawyer who defends a black man in court against a jury of white men in a period of severe hatred and racism. As she and her brother, Jem, advance throughout the novel, Scout begins to gaze at her seemingly peaceful and sleepy town through new eyes as she’s exposed to the dark, prejudiced background and deep roots of discrimination. Through the kids’ experiences, Lee makes it evident that sometimes, adolescents may lose their naive illusions clouding their view on the world, and will gain a vision of reality and realization, a gain of ethical ideals and maturity.
“I peeked at Jem: his hands were white from gripping the balcony rail, and his shoulders jerked as if each ‘guilty’ was a separate stab between them” (Lee 282). As Judge Taylor began polling and reading out the conviction, Jem visually exhibits his gradual loss of faith in human righteousness and honor in which the United States courts were built upon, and thus his innocence as he realizes the true Southern injustice and bias. After the trial, Jem confronted Atticus: “‘Atticus… How could they do it [to Robinson], how could they?’” (Lee 285). This further illustrates Jem’s perplexion in the betrayal of a fellow human in the name of racism as he continues questioning the harsh classist hierarchy of Maycomb, showing the final threads of innocence, still left from the parting of childhood. In response to the concerns, Atticus states that “seems only children weep,” addressing the fact that children, in their uncorrupt minds, see plain facts as they are, however, adults are molded by the biases of society to simply accept the injustices as they are (Lee 285).
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Throughout the first part of the novel, Lee describes Scout’s innocent mindset through multiple occurrences of judgement or irradical assumptions due to difference. One unremarkable day, Scout and Jem invite Walter Cunningham for supper, in which he “poured syrup on his vegetables and meat with a generous hand” (Lee 32). Unable to comprehend “what the sam hill he was doing,” Scout chastised him in an upsurge simply for eating in a manner she herself was not used to, revealing her early, undeveloped mindset (Lee 32). In another occurrence, when the home of Miss Maudie incinerated, and the whole of the neighborhood was out, Scout finds herself standing outside with “a brown woolen blanket” that was not her’s (Lee 95). Through deduction and inference, it was revealed that Boo Radley put the blanket around her. After hearing this, Scout’s “stomach turned to water and [she] nearly threw up” (Lee 96). The complete disgust that she feels complete undermines the caring and compassion of Boo, as he protects her, further emphasizing her utter innocence and ignorance. Later, after the plot advances, Scout is shown to mature significantly. One specific occurence that serves as evidence of this is in Miss Gates’s class, when Cecil Jacobs brings up the topic of Hitler and his prosecution of Jews in Europe. When she begins a brief lecture about the sinful deeds of Hitler, while being ignorant in the prejudice and injustice in her own town. Scout shows her moral edification by questioning this: “‘how can you hate Hitler so bad an’ then turn around and be ugly about folks right at home-” (Lee 331). In addition to that, Scout, after the attack on Scout and Jem, takes Boo Radley back home. However, she realizes that she has to be a “lady,” and cannot lead Boo by hand, as it discredits his “gentleman” status. This shows that she no longer sees Boo as the terrible, flesh-eating monster derived strictly from rumors, and she now sees him as one of her neighbors: an ordinary person.
Miss Maudie’s house was a symbol for the character’s childhood and childish innocence. Prior to the burning of the house, or the sluggish deterioration of Scout’s innocence and a turning point in the plot, the children were mainly caught up in infantile games and myths concerning the true nature of the supernatural Boo Radley. They pondered, vulnerable to rumors and biases, the abnormality and atrocity of the thing that he was. Soonly after, Miss Maudie’s home fell to deadly flames, the first step towards the shift in plot and attitude. In the later occurences of Boo Radley, Scout is portrayed as having a more empathetic approach him. She has a sudden revelation to which she recognizes Boo as a neighbor; to which she recognizes Boo’s kindness and the fact that “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). Scout sincerely realized Boo’s genuine human nature, as gentle and innocent as a mockingbird, and began accepting him so far as to even accompany him back to his home, formerly seen as fearsome, impeding chamber in the preface of the book, when a mere slap to the imposing walls of the building would send children fleeing, once again establishing the theme of innocence.
To Kill a Mockingbird, to this day, continues to serve as a landmark in American literature, with its masterfully told plot, interwoven with layers upon layers of moral and ethical doctrines. As Novelist Lee Smith accurately states in an interview, “‘I think people want to read something substantial. They want to have something to believe in, and To Kill a Mockingbird manages to do that without being too preachy’” (Murphy 7). As relevant as it is today, and rightfully so, the intricately incorporated moral edification instituted within the novel causes “a galvanizing effect on a young reader. This is a novel which endures” (Murphy 7). Lee Smith, also a lecturer from North Carolina State University, taught the novel for 25 years, and states that it still continues to elicit “the same responses we all had” in her students (Murphy 7). Other interviewees have similarly talked about the ways the novel affected their youthful livelihoods, such as Lawyer Scott Turow, who read To Kill a Mockingbird as a pupil: “‘I promised myself that when I grew up and I was a man, I would try to do things just as good and noble as what Atticus had done for Tom Robinson’” (Murphy 8). Turow describes the profound internal response to the book, how it motivated his approach to do good and be noble.
Innocence can be, and is lost through the undergoing of many different ordeals and trials in life. Harper Lee’s 1961 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird deals with the theme of maturity, growing up, and loss of innocence, demonstrating that sometimes, children may lose their simple illusions obscuring their view of the world through exposure to real-world evils, and will gain a vision of reality and realization; ethical ideals and maturity. This theme is illustrated by Harper Lee through the court trial, Scout’s ignorance and naivety, and Boo Radley; demonstrating the everlasting relevancy of To Kill a Mockingbird.
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