![]() Raymond when he tells an angry and tearful Jem that juries have been wrongfully convicting black men for years, will continue to do so, and that only children cry when it happens-another indicator that children, who are more unencumbered by social codes and pressure to fit in, are innately able to pick up on injustices like this. It’s because of his outsider status that he’s able to make these observations and confirm for Dill that what’s happening to Robinson is awful-though it’s still possible, he suggests, that Dill will one day “fall into line” and conform to the hatred around him. Raymond is, notably, an outsider in Maycomb, as he’s white and yet lives with his black girlfriend because he wants to, a choice that’s unthinkable to even someone like Scout. ![]() Raymond, a man whom Scout previously thought was an evil drunk, suggests that Dill only has the reaction he does because he’s a child-as children grow, he suggests, they lose their capacity to cry over injustices like Robinson experiences, as they learn to conform to adult rules of polite society that forbid reactions like that (and for white people like Scout and Dill, also discourages that kind of compassion directed toward black people in the first place). Dill, in particular, is angered and overcome by the rude and racist way that Mr. Gilmer’s interrogation of Tom Robinson is a wakeup call for the children, and their reaction to Robinson’s the trial suggests that although children can be naïve, they are often more perceptive and compassionate than the supposedly mature adults around them. ![]() As the novel wears on and Scout witnesses terrible cruelty and injustice, it also suggests that she’ll also have to fight hard to maintain her sense of compassion, right, and wrong. With this, Scout is encouraged by Atticus to understand that while she may one day have to enter the world of adults and grow up, the path to get there is one on which she’ll have to fight constantly for her individuality. In this sense, Scout begins to see that the adult world is just as nonsensical as the reader can see that Scout’s childhood world is-though the adult world is one that forces growing children to conform and fall into line, rather than one that relies on imagination and individuality. Scout’s precocity and intelligence means that when she enters the first grade, she already knows how to read and write, both printing and cursive-something that her teacher, Miss Caroline, finds threatening and offensive for seemingly no real reason, and even punishes Scout for. Particularly once Scout begins attending school, the novel suggests that even though children may be prone to this kind of nonsense and far-fetched storytelling, they’re still innately able to recognize the ridiculousness of the adult world around them, and in particular, the ineffectiveness of the school system. The children’s innocence, as represented by these instances of misunderstandings or far-fetched superstitions, isn’t always entirely humorous, however. While undeniably humorous to the reader, who’s likely aware that these notions are ridiculous and incorrect, the beliefs themselves function as a window into just how youthful and innocent Scout, Jem, and Dill truly are. The children also firmly believe, for the first year of the novel, that Boo Radley is a zombie-like figure who eats small mammals or, possibly, is dead and stuffed up the chimney of the Radley house. For example, she believes Jem’s unfounded claim that the teaching method Miss Caroline promotes is called the Dewey Decimal System-in reality, a system of organizing a library-and referring to her and Jem’s snowman as an “Absolute Morphodite” in such a way that betrays that she has no idea what “morphodite” actually means (a hermaphrodite, a plant or animal with both male and female sex organs). Though Scout is a precocious child in a variety of ways, the novel also goes to great lengths to comically demonstrate how innocent and unaware Scout is of the world around her. In particular, having Scout, whom the reader meets at age six, narrate the story allows the novel to show clearly how children lose their innocence as they grow-while also using Scout’s innocence to look freshly at Maycomb and her world to criticize its flaws. They begin the novel with a firm and uncomplicated idea of what’s good and what’s bad, but by the end of the novel, they’ve all lost their innocence and have come to a more complex understanding of how people and the world work. Over the course of the novel’s three years, Scout, Dill, and Jem grow up both physically and mentally.
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