In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout, the narrorator, is forced to go through an extreme amount of change. As the novel opens, she is a naïve little girl unaware of her surroundings and of the evils of the world. In the end of the novel she is a more mature girl with a greater understanding of how the world works. On reason that she is so naïve at the beginning is because of how she was brought. Scout was nurtured by Atticus, who gave her a lot more than any other girl in Maycomb. Atticus taught her how to read, and shielded her from racism in the South. This was not all bad though, because as Scout grew up, she did not have contempt for blacks, she saw them as equals. There are many instances in which Scout shows both her naivety and how she changes throughout this book.
A first example is when Scout attempts
to find the definition of rape. When she asks Atticus, he replied by saying that rape is “carnal knowledge of a female by force and without consent.” While this is obviously an extremely complex form of saying the true definition, Scouts show not understanding at all by replying that she did not see a reason for others to scold her for asking that question because of its lack of importance.
The point that truly changes Scout and her view on life was when she and Jem were attacked on their way home from a party at school. They were walking home, and were suddenly jumped by a man with a knife who tried to stab them. As they both got away with no serious injuries, Scout realized that she was luck to still be alive. She found out that if she had not been wearing her wire-rimmed Haloween costume, that she wo
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