Obedience In To Kill A Mockingbird

• Scout tells the story many years after the events of the book takes place, “[w]hen enough years had gone by to enable [her and Jem] to look back on them” (3). She is most likely an adult now, and has much more experience and knowledge of the world around her, and therefore is able to look back and reflect and comment on events that she, as a young child, had not understood. o “‘He is,’ we heard Atticus answer, ‘and he’s asleep. Don’t wake him up.’ In obedience to my father, there followed what I later realized was a sickeningly comic aspect of an unfunny situation: the men talked in near-whispers” (202)

 When the events took place, Scout was unaware of the danger of the mob to both Atticus and Tom Robinson. However, looking back, she not only realizes the threat, but comments on how ironic the situation was— the mob immediately obeyed Atticus’s request for them to speak quietly, despite being willing to hurt Atticus if he got in there way, in order not to wake up Tom, who they

She does not know much about, or understand, the horrors of life. o Her innocence and wide-eyed outlook on life also makes the realizations that Scout has as the novel progresses more dramatic. Scout is young and impressionable, her perspective not yet completely colored by prejudice and bias.

 “Yessum, and she promised me I could come out to her house some afternoon. Atticus. I’ll go next Sunday if it’s all right, can I? Cal said she’d come get me if you were off in the car” (181).

• Scout, still a child, is not aware that most of Maycomb would not approve of her visiting Calpurnia’s house, as she is white while Calpurnia is black. o This innocence, and lack of knowledge of the world she lives in and her gradual understanding allows readers to gradually understand, along with Scout, the world Scout lives in. It also allows readers to interpret and make their own realizations about Maycomb and the way of life