Go Set A Watchman

As people grow in life, they mature and change. In the novel , To Kill a Mockingbird ,by Harper Lee, Scout, the main character, matures as the book continues. Slowly but surely, Scout learns to control her explosive temper, to refrain from fistfights, and to respect Calpurnia, their maid, and to really learn her value to the family. Scout simply changes because she matures, and she also changes because Atticus, her father, asks her to.

Harper Lee is well known for her great contributions towards modern society through her astounding book, To Kill a Mockingbird. The novel is read world-wide, in high schools and colleges because of its in-depth look at the social classes in the south during the 1930's. The book was influenced by society, in particular the social order of the south during her childhood. Lee grew up during this time of controversy which is why she writes so passionately about the topic. Lee wrote the novel to make a point about race while basing much of the plot off a trial from her young age, her own father, and the society she grew up in.

To Kill a Mockingbird was written and published in 1960, “in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement” (Carolyn Jones). This time was just a few years after events like the murder of Emmett Till, a fourteen year old boy accused of whistling at a white woman, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the ruling in Alabama that segregation on buses is unconstitutional happened (PBS African American World). This goes to show that the time period had some effect on Harper Lee at the time.

The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee involves growing up and maturing. There are many characters who undergo some type of character growth, but none more than Jean Louise Finch, also known as Scout. In the beginning of the novel Scout is a very naïve young girl, but by the end, she is a highly mature young lady who is ready to take on almost anything that the world may throw at her. The growth of Scout is fuelled through her exposure to events occurring around her, her questions and wonderings, and her relationships with other people.

Scout is one of many characters in the historical fiction book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee that develop as the story progresses. She grows throughout the novel by becoming more aware of her surroundings as the story progresses and reveals more to the reader. Also, Scout over the course of the book starts to realize what kind of man Boo Radley actually is and begins to trust him more towards the end of the book. She even walks with him and talks to him as if he were a friend of her, which he could very well be at the end of the book. Finally, Scouts morals develop by in the beginning of the book having started at level one of Kohlberg's moral development chart, but towards the end of the book reaching level two.

Harper Lee completed the novel in 1957 and, after revisions, published it in 1960, just before the peak of the civil rights movement. John Hiett called it “a nuanced indictment of racism, [which] helped trigger the Civil Rights Movement and forced many Southerners to reexamine their attitudes.” While the critical responses to To Kill a Mockingbird were mixed: a number of critics found the narrative voice of a nine-year-old girl unconvincing and called the novel overly moralistic. It is a coming-of-age story focusing on the importance of empathy, perception, bravery, and acceptance and the book remains a staple of high school and college reading lists, beloved by millions of readers worldwide for its appealing depiction of childhood innocence, its scathing moral condemnation of racial prejudice, and its affirmation that human goodness can withstand the assault of evil. The novel has never been out of print and sells over a million copies each year (Sparknotes.com). This American classic, has been influencing readers for decades and will continue to do so.

Society was cruel to Harper Lee in her early years and throughout her life. Because of her schools and communities she always felt like an outcast, which was easily seen in her own characterization of the title’s main protagonist, Scout. She saw the injustice of the world and was inspired to write the classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird. “He likened Tom’s death to the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children” (chapter 25). She had seen injustice to blacks in her communities and wanted to shed light on the wrongdoing of the subject. “Yes, suh. I felt right sorry for her, she seemed to try more’n the rest of em-” (Chapter 19). Tom, as well as countless other men, was subject to prejudice and possibly death. Although

On 1993, the Lee writes a brief foreword of her book and she was asked about the future editions of “To Kill a Mockingbird”. She said that the book has managed to survive without preamble and it remains a staple for high school and colleges. It has millions of worldwide readers who like the innocence of childhood, moral condemnation of racial prejudice and the goodness of human to withstand the battering of evil.

Matt Berman from Common Sense Media commented, “This richly textured novel, woven from the strands of small-town life, lets readers walk in the shoes of one fully realized character after another.” In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee lets the readers look into the perspectives and identities of some of the characters which makes the story seem very life-like. Lee’s ability to write in such a way helps people distinguish the characters’ admirable and dislikable qualities portrayed through their actions. Young six year old Scout contains the likable qualities of being courageous and mature for her age. Her father, Atticus Finch, who was at the time dealing with the Tom Robinson case, kept the admirable aspect of being sympathetic and strong

In the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, the narrator grows and develops throughout the novel. The narrator is known as Scout Finch a young girl who reaches the age of 9 through the book. In the beginning she is ignorant and doesn’t really understand what's going on around her; by the end not only does she lose childish thoughts but her innocence as well thanks to the help of many other characters within the novel. Scout learns not to believe everything she hears as well as to not judge a person by their appearance or behavior.

Over the three year lapse of To Kill A Mockingbird by. Harper Lee, scout has changed more than any character. After everybody found out that Atticus was defending a black person everybody started talking about it at school and she chose to not fight at school. “The school buzzed with talk about him defending Tom robinson, none of which was complimentary. After my bout with cecil jacobs when i committed

Harper Lee’s first novel To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960. The novel about racial discrimination and segregation in the south made Harper Lee a hero in many people's eyes, because she was able to openly write about the problems that plagued our nation. To Kill a Mockingbird is told through the eyes of narrator Scout Finch and her brother Jem who are children growing up in Maycomb, Alabama. The novel tells the story of how the children, along with their summer friend Dill, become entranced with the idea of catching a glimpse of an unseen neighbor Boo Radley. Meanwhile, their father Atticus Finch, an attorney, decides to defend Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman named Mayella Ewell. Even though Tom is proven innocent, he is still convicted and later killed when trying to escape from jail. After the trail Jen and Scout become the targets of Bob Ewell, the father of Mayella, who then tries to kill them on the way home from school on Halloween night, but Boo Radley-who the children have never seen-shows up to save them, killing Bob in the process (287). Harper Lee’s Second novel is Go Set a Watchman and it is a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird published in 2015. The sequel continues with Scout, now a grown woman going by the name of Jean Louise, taking her crippled father back to her

In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird, the narrator and the main character are the same people: Jean Louise “Scout” Finch. However, Scout was the supposed younger version of Jean Louise. Harper Lee writes the story so that an older more mature Jean Louise narrates her life story and explain things the younger 6-year-old Scout couldn’t. Harper Lee’s purpose is to make the story easier to understand and more entertaining. Lee creates a contrast that is very entertaining as it shows our young child’s life being narrated by her adult self.

“Lee’s narrative voice is a wildly unstable compound, a forced mixture..”, said Mallon talking about the difference in wording and sound, “of Scout’s very young perspective and a fully adult one.” (Mallon). This is completely true, based on the maturity of decisions and perspective, the book is not always in the young child’s perspective. This can lead to confusion and may be hard to decipher at times. Stephen Metcalf also adds on to this point in his article as well, “Lee's narration remains a patchwork, mixing an adult's and a child's perspective according to no logic…” (Metcalf). This is just one of the agreed problems between the two in the novel. Another would be when Thomas Mallon said, “The book never persists in ambiguity.” (Mallon) The people and decisions in this book are always indefinite going back and forth all the time, for example Mr. Underwood. This can be very misleading and cause confusion. So this is yet another problem with the novel making it confusing. To conclude, the novel has quite a few flaws making the book harder to read and

Widely known as one of the best American authors of all time, Harper Lee managed to make herself a household name with only one novel. To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee’s recordbreaking novel, won many different awards, such as The Presidential Medal of Freedom, The Pulitzer Prize, and Best Fiction, not to mention the translation into nearly 50 different languages worldwide. It also spurned a play version, and a move (both of which managed to win many more awards) (“Harper Lee”). One of the major reasons her book was so successful is that she wrote from personal experience, to the point where the book could be considered a fictional biography. This caused the main character and narrator, Scout Finch, among many other characters, to seem so real and