Scout’s Perception of Truth and Reality Anonymous 10th Grade

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it” (Lee 33). Atticus Finch tells this quote to the main character, Scout Finch, in the book To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. Jean-Louise Finch (Scout) is a young girl living in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression. She lives in a society that resents blacks, and one judges people based on color and family history. Atticus, trying to teach his children good morals and values, teaches Scout to see things from different perspectives. He believes that seeing things from other people’s angles helps one get a better understanding of the truth. Though Scout is unable to see things from different perspectives at the beginning of the book, she slowly acquires that skill. As Scout starts seeing things from the perspectives of Calpurnia, Boo Radley, and Tom Robinson, she begins to see past her ignorance and realizes that society has a great capacity for evil, but also has a great capacity for good.

At the beginning of the book, Scout was young, ignorant, and childish. She was only eight years old, and lacked the ability to see all the sides of the story. Scout was...