To Kill a Mockingbird essay

Question 8: Explain the role of the narrator in the development of any of the themes in the literary text that you are writing about.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee succeeds in exploring the theme of growing up by showing the segregated world in Maycomb, Alabama during the 1930s through the eyes of a young girl, Scout, accompanied by her brother Jem.

Indeed, at the start of the novel, Scout and her brother Jem are two innocent young children, thinking that they know what is good, the good being represented by Atticus Finch, their father, and what is bad, the evil being represented by Boo Radley, the “monster,” or “ghost” of the town. However, throughout the novel, the children grow up and start to realise that all is not just black and white. On the contrary, and, by the end of the novel, it is clear that both children have lost part if not all of their innocence and start understanding the world in a more complex manner, where both good and evil are present everywhere. Regardless of how much they try, they do not accept the world that is presented to them for that world that they see is not what they expected and they start questioning everything, the violence, the hate, the prejudice.

In addition, Scout goes to school like any child her age and growing up. However, instead of benefiting from her education, Scout’s school is portrayed as close-minded and strict to such an extent that it becomes idiotic. Indeed, her teacher criticises the young girl because she got a head start on the reading. Furthermore, that same teacher criticises the nazis and npt even paying attention to the racism present in their own town of Maycomb, Alabama. Harper Lee portrays a school that stops children from growing up open minded and having a good understanding of socioeconomic and racal boundaries.

However, despite her school, Scout has the opportunity of growing up in a healthy environment by being taught by her father Atticus, whose teachings regard seeing the world with another persons perspective and walk around in their shoes.

Lee, in To Kill a Mockingbird uses the narrator’s innocence and the loss of it to criticies our formerly segregated society through the theme of growing up.

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