Scout is a very unusual little girl, both in her own qualities and in her social position. She is unusually intelligent, unusually confident, unusually thoughtful, and unusually good. In terms of her social identity, she is unusual for being a tomboy in the prim and proper Southern world of Maycomb. At the beginning of the novel, Scout is an innocent, good-hearted five-year-old child who has no experience with the evils of the world. As the novel progresses, Scout has her first contact with evil in the form of racial prejudice, and the basic development of her character is governed by the question of whether she will emerge from that contact with her conscience and optimism intact or whether she will be bruised, hurt, or destroyed like Boo Radley and Tom Robinson. Thanks to Atticus’ wisdom, Scout learns that though humanity has a great capacity for evil, it also has a great capacity for good, and that the evil can often be mitigated if one approaches others with an outlook of sympathy and understanding. Scout’s development into a person capable of assuming that outlook marks the conclusion of the novel and indicates that, whatever evil she encounters, she will retain her conscience without becoming cynical or jaded. Though she is still a child at the end of the book, Scout’s perspective on life develops from that of an innocent child into that of a near grown-up.

	Created by emmabavidge over 10 years ago

English (TKAM) Note on Character Analysis, created by emmabavidge on 06/04/2014.

Character Analysis