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Essay On To Kill A Mockingbird Coming Of Age

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In the book To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout grows up in a small town where nothing normally happens. When her dad is given a case to defend a black man, she gets thrown into a world where racism has been the norm. She hasn’t been exposed to something like this, so she is confused, but she grows more mature in that time. She and Jem both come of age in different ways in the story and get a taste of the real world. Scout and Jem both show maturation throughout the book. Their father’s decision to defend a black man opens them up to the harsh world of racism and prejudice, meanwhile he shows them how to be compassionate to people and not to follow the norm. The reason To Kill A Mockingbird is a great coming-of-age story is that it lifts Scout and Jem out of the racist society norms and asks them to be more and model their father’s behavior. Even though racism is a big problem of our world today, it was a bigger problem when Jem and Scout were children.
Scout is considered an unknowing kid by many people until she models her father’s behavior and advice he gives her. “You never really understand a …show more content…

“Books tell children what to expect, what life is, what culture is, how we are expected to behave--what the spectrum is. Books don’t just cater to tastes. They form tastes. They create norms…” P. 4. Books nowadays have taken teenagers to a different level entirely. Books like the Hunger Games, Divergent, or The Maze Runner have a dystopian theme to them where kids are thrown into a different world from their childhood. They create norms for the real world for the teenagers because we have been sucked into this new world. For us, this gives us a different intellect on what we think is right. As readers we look for a character that we can relate to. If we can do that, but it gives us a different perspective we may not want, then the books are giving us a norm that may not be healthy for

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