Scout Finch's Life Lessons

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“Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way” (Franken). In the coming-of-age novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, the protagonist Scout Finch learns numerous life lessons as she develops through the novel. The novel takes place during the 1930’s in the rural town of Maycomb, Alabama where prejudice was routine. Scout lives with her father Atticus, her brother Jem, and their housekeeper Calpurnia. Lee targets in on the social injustice the black and poor communities undergo, and how it shapes Scout’s perspective on these groups of people. Single father and lawyer, Atticus, takes on the racism headfirst when he willingly chooses to represent African-American, Tom Robinson …show more content…
She learns to do this from her father Atticus when he gave Jem and Scout air-rifles but would not teach them to shoot. Atticus said to Jem that he should try to shoot bluejays because it is a sin to kill a mockingbird. When Scout asks Miss Maudie to confirm this, she says, “‘Your father’s right,’ she said. ‘Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.’” (Lee, 103). Miss Maudie is explaining to Scout why mockingbirds are so unique, and why they should never be hurt. Atticus is teaching Scout to look at mockingbirds as people, because innocent people can be dragged down by the evils in the world. Lee incorporates this lesson multiple times throughout the novel as well. For example, Boo Radley, the Finch’s neighbor, never harms anybody; he instead leaves Jem and Scout presents and rescues both of them from Bob Ewell’s attempt at murder. In defiance of his pure heart, Boo is impaired by his abusive father. Overall, as Scout grows up, she learns to protect the little good left in the world instead of destroying
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