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Experience of Children in Harper Lee's Novel, To Kill a Mockingbird

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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a novel set in Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930s. The three main children in the novel are Jean Louise Finch “Scout,” Jem Finch, and Charles Baker Harris “Dill.” The novel also features Scout and Jem’s father Atticus Finch, Arthur “Boo” Radley, and Tom Robinson. The children saw and experienced things that most children would never have to go through. Because of the things they have seen and experienced, Scout, Jem, and Dill mature and learn many life lessons as the novel progresses. At the beginning of To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout is six years old. She is a tomboy who is naturally curious about life. Her curiosity can get her in trouble sometimes because she is so young and immature. Boo Radley is one of her greatest fancies in the book. She is very interested in seeing him for the first sitting on his front porch and saying what a mighty fine day it was. As the story continues she still keeps that image in her mind, but she quits trying to see him through the shudders because she realizes that if he wanted to come out, he would. Tom Robinson’s case is something that no young girl should even know anything about, much less experience. The case opened her eyes to how Maycomb treats the colored and she realizes that Tom Robinson was only inedited and found guilty because of what color his skin was. By the end of the novel, Scout has turned into a young lady and compares Tom and Boo to a Mockingbird because of the way they are

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