Point of view Donna Wylie

Quote #1 chapter 1, page 6, paragraph 2 Donna Wylie

Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop . . . [s]omehow it was hotter then . . . bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum. . . . There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County. But it was a time of vague optimism for some of the people: Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself.

Scout Finch

Point of view:     

          The point of view in a novel is the perspective from which a story is told. It can be in first person, where a character in a book talks of events using I, my, me, mine, etc. or third person. Third person had three types, objective, where the narrator in the story is an outsider who can only report what he or she sees or hears. Third person limited is when the narrator focus’ on one character and lastly, third person omniscient is when the narrator is an all knowing character or outsider that can enter the minds of many characters. In To kill a mockingbird the point of view is in first person.

          To kill a mockingbird is told in the perspective of the older Scout Finch, recollecting her childhood memories, as Scout speaks in the past tense. By paying close attention one can realize that Scout’s point of view is present from the beginning of the novel. For example Scout states in chapter one with, ‘When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.’ Then starts the second paragraph with, ‘When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them…’ Scout eventually makes her way to her earlier childhood when she was almost six and Jem was almost ten. As Scout does this she is talking with a child’s voice, and sees things through a child’s eyes.

          Even though Scout speaks with a child’s voice, when she refers to her childhood, like on page 102, paragraph five, her diction changes from that of a child’s to a women’s. Scout uses terms like ‘as had I’ rather that words like ‘nome’ which is short for no ma’am.

If Scout’s mature point of view is not noticed at the start of the book (I only realized at the ending of chapter nine when Scout says I never figured out how Atticus knew I was listening, and it was not until many years later that I realized he wanted me to hear every word he said.’) You can look for references like, ‘In my later years’ (Page 102, paragraph five.)

Harper Lee’s style of point of view in To kill a mockingbird is very effectice because it allows the reader to look into Scout’s childhood with occasional explanations by the older Scout commenting on the events. Also if the point of view was from Scout as a child there would be too many events going on that would be hard for a child to understand and explain.

Possible questions for discussion:

• How would your take on To kill a mockingbird differ if Jem told the story? Or if it was still in Scouts point of view but third person objective?
  
• Did you notice this style of point of view? If so, how?
  
• On page 30 Atticus told Scout you can’t really understand a person, “-until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Has that changed how Scout perceives things? If so, how?
  
• Discuss the beginning of chapter 7 in correlation to this quote.
  
• Re-read the first page of chapter 30 if you had already. What do you think Scout was feeling/thinking when she said, ‘Just standing on the Radley porch was enough.’
  

                      

Scout eacting breakfast before the first day of school