Illustration of a bird perched on a scale of justice

To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee

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Student Question

What effect does Scout's point of view have on two incidents in To Kill a Mockingbird?

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Scout's point of view in To Kill a Mockingbird introduces dramatic irony and highlights innocence. In the lynch mob scene, the adult narrator understands the danger to Atticus, but young Scout does not, creating tension. During the trial, Scout's childlike perspective reveals societal prejudices and adult hypocrisy, exemplified by Dolphus Raymond’s feigned drunkenness to justify his lifestyle. This child narrator effectively exposes adult flaws and societal injustices through her innocent observations.

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The narrator is speaking from the perspective of Scout in Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird, but it's worth remembering that the narrator is an adult woman, looking back across multiple decades as she remembers and relives her childhood. The narrator thus has far more understanding of what is unfolding that does her younger self, the one is experiencing everything first hand. To say simply that the story is told from Scout's perspective, I think, is to miss out on this often very well executed distinction between Scout-as-narrator and Scout-as-character.

Chapter 1 opens by establishing that the narrator is much older than the tomboyish Scout whom we learn to love in the novel. A number of scenes in the novel rely on this split for their effectiveness, even if they don't present it explicitly. In the scene with the lynch mob seeking to take Tom Robinson from the jail,...

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for example, the narrator seems to me to be fully aware of the danger involved forAtticus, but the young girl Scout clearly is not aware of the same danger. This split between who has awareness and who doesn't may be seen as a type of dramatic irony (the reader is clued in and, through the details given by the narrator, perceives the danger, whereas the young girl character does not have the same understanding of the situation). This dramatic irony makes this scene in front of the jail one of most memorable of the novel for me.

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During the trial, Dill gets really sick. Scout telling this story from the point of view of a child demonstrates their innocence. Dolphus Raymond gives the two an earful while the jury is out. If you need some quotes to help you answer that question, check out chapter 21. In the first 4-5 pages, this conversation between Dill, Scout and Dolphus Raymond takes place that shows how the innocence of children reveals the vile ugliness of people's judgments and how that affects their behaviors towards one another. Although white, Dolphus has undergone much judgment by the townspeople. When they find out that it's really Coca-cola in his bottle, and not that he's a drunk, they learn another truth: Adults lie to make each other comfortable. Because Scout is a child narrator, it makes our faults as adults blatantly obvious.

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