Why Is Innocence Becomes Experience?

Thomas Gray once said “Ignorance is bliss”. As children grow up, they learn many unpleasant truths. Scout too is introduced to many harsh concepts like prejudice. In her novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses deception and racism to show Scout’s coming of age.

She would get a better understanding of this as the novel progresses. Scout also learns more about maturity when she experiences hypocrisy from her teacher, “Over here we don’t believe in persecuting anybody. Persecution comes from people who are prejudiced. Pre-ju-dice,” She is contradicting herself, saying that it is acceptable to persecute blacks but not Jews. It dawned on Scout that people are hypocrites and have double standards when it suits them. The biggest step the children took towards growing up was during the Tom Robinson trials. There, the children received full exposure to the evils, malevolence, prejudice and sorrow of the cruel world as a white man accuses an innocent black man for raping when all Tom ever wanted to achieve was to help others. The children understood what was going on completely and was therefore changed because of it. At the unexpected climax of the novel, the children have an unpleasant encounter with Bob Ewell who wanted to take revenge on Atticus for humiliating him by killing his children. This was an absolutely outrageous act of insanity but also taught the children how dangerous reality could be, finalizing their journey into adulthood.

The author, Harper Lee, said “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view”. The citizens in To Kill A Mockingbird do not follow that quote. Some of the characters are very judgmental to those they don't know and make assumptions about them.Harper Lee uses the character Jem to prove to us the power of integrity,courage, and being true to yourself will help you in a racist town.

As children grow up, they open their eyes to the harsh truths in the world around them that they once did not understand or question. This is experienced by the main characters of Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The story is of a girl called Scout and her older brother, Jem, who go through the trials of growing up in the fictional small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930s. Racism is rampant in the mindset of the townspeople, shown when the children’s lawyer father, Atticus, takes the case of an obviously innocent African-American man and they convict him in their hearts before the trial even starts. Through this all, we can see the theme of loss of innocence in the children. Lee uses characterization to portray

Loss of innocence occurs when a person first develops an awareness of the suffering, evil and injustice around them. In poignant bildungsroman To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee writes through the eyes of “Scout” Finch, recounting her experience growing up in the segregated town of Maycomb. Through Scout, you learn about her father Atticus Finch, an attorney who hopelessly strives to prove the innocence of Tom Robinson; a black man unjustly accused of rape, and of the civil rights issues and prejudice which plagues the town of Maycomb. Throughout the novel, scout loses her innocence as she is harshly exposed to the reality of injustice and racism in Maycomb. Three significant events illustrate this fact. The first example occurs when Scout

The characters in To Kill A Mockingbird and the people in our society don’t understand our world until they’ve experienced a loss of innocence. Growing up is a hard part of life. When people are younger, they’re naive and not aware of anything outside their home. When experiencing loss of innocence, people are more aware of right and wrong. People are beginning the rules and concepts of life. Experiencing a life lesson can lead to a loss of innocence. People are finally maturing and understanding situations from others perspectives.

In the novel, to kill a mockingbird, Harper Lee presents three very distinct types of innocence that are portrayed by different characters throughout the novel. A good part in this story’s brilliance is that Harper Lee has managed to use the innocence of a young girl to her advantage. She does this by telling the whole story from a child’s point-of-view. By having an innocent little girl make racial remarks and regard people of color in a way consistent with the community, Lee provides the reader with an objective view of the situation. As a child, Scout can make observations that an adult would often avoid. In addition, readers are also likely to be forgiving of a child’s perception, whereas they would find an adult who makes these

Everyday, people of all ages lose their innocence and develop morally through their daily experiences. Children deal with mishaps on the playground, conflicts with friends and family, and trouble in school. Similarly, Adults deal with conflicts within their own families, problems at work, and the loss of a loved one. In each situation, the person is learning important lessons that impact the way a person thinks, acts, approaches situations, and treats others. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, Jem loses his innocence and grows morally through his daily experiences in three stages of understanding in Maycomb, Alabama.

Throughout the book Jem almost becomes a whole new person. He matures both mentally and physically, showing everyone that he can be a good brother and son. Though Jem did many bad things, like cutting all of the camellias in Mrs. Dubose’s lawn, he did good things too, like not leaving Scout alone when they were getting attacked by Bob Ewell. Many things can be powerful. Violence is powerful, it brings whole communities together. Death is powerful because it shows everyone that they only have one life and we have to live it. Words are the most powerful though. They can make you happy, sad, angry, confused, or almost any emotion you can think of. Racism consists of violence, death, and words, making it extraordinarily powerful. Jem was affected by those three components of racism in different ways. He saw the violence when Tom Robinson was beaten, he heard of death when Tom Robinson was killed after the trial finished, and Jem witnessed the power of words when Mrs. Dubose yelled at Scout and him. Jem matured physically and mentally throughout the whole book, showing everyone that kids are affected by racism

    To begin,  Jem and Scout have a father named Atticus who is a lawyer and has such a good character, that even he defends colored people for crimes even though most know that if a black person is tried in court, not at anytime did he or she receive a fair and unprejudiced decision toward their fate.  Based on Atticus and his overall character and actions, one can say that one of the most impactful and poignant lessons that Atticus ingrains into his children’s brains is to always live humbly towards life and live positively and politely.  Several instances of Atticus being reserved and respectful and most importantly impacting Jem and Scout would be when he shot a dog with rabies when nobody else particularly wanted too and shot it dead between the eyes and never told anyone about being “the best shot in town”.  It most left Jem in utter awe as Miss Maudie Atkinson, a neighbor of the

In To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, losing one's innocence is a major factor in shaping each of the characters personalities and beliefs in the story. By looking at The Inevitably of the Loss of Innocence, we can see that as each of the characters are growing up, they get more shocked by the reality of the harsh world because they have not yet learned hatred in their peers and community and because of the realization that not everybody is kind and has good morals. This is important because Lee displays this theme in the story by creating conflicts such as Tom Robinson's trial and the children's reaction to the verdict. Lee uses characterization for Boo Radley by giving the audience an overview about people's view on him and the horrifying

The way that children are raised is a source of racism. From a young age, children look up to their parents as idols and teachers. Their opinions and beliefs are passed down to their children. Children do not know any better; they have not had any time to search for their own opinions. In ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, Scout and Jem are brought up in a non-racist household. Their father, Atticus, believes that everyone is equal and that people shouldn’t be prejudiced on because of their skin colour. When Atticus defended an African American man who ended up going to jail for doing something innocent, Jem and Scout do not understand why people would do that. The rest of the town knew that he was innocent too, but chose to put him in jail anyway because the whites were superior over the African Americans. Atticus brought up Jem and Scout through his opinions of African American people. Their opinions are the same as

He says “It aint your fault your fault if Uncle Atticus is an n***** lover”. (Chap. 9) It is clear that Jem and Scout get to learn what reality is like when it comes to racism. Both Jem and Scout got to witness an experience of

In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird the most commonly identified theme is the loss or destruction of innocence. Innocence has a number of meanings and a lot of these are shown within the story. The main ones represented in the book are, the state, quality, or fact of being innocent of a crime or offense, lack of guile or corruption, having purity, and freedom from guilt or sin especially through lack of knowledge of evil. There are characters who include Jem and Scout, Tom Robinson, and Boo Radley who show their definition of innocence through the book. Each of these characters who has their innocence goes down a path where they lose it and they have to take on the world face to face.

No matter where or who a person is, they are always learning something, either about themselves or about the environment around them. In Harper Lee's heartwarming novel titled To Kill A Mockingbird, the main characters Jem and Scout grow and mature throughout the story as they learn both more about themselves and the world around them. As the story progresses, they learn many life lessons including those about prejudice, people and how they have been categorized and judged, and, last but not least, gender issues.