To Kill A Mockingbird Identity Analysis

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Thematic Essay
Scout finishes seeking her identity when she walks Arthur Radley home and says that “as I made my way home, I felt very old (Lee 374).” Through both Pip and Scout’s road to identity, their maturity reaches its peak when, as Scout stated, they feel old. Seeking identity is a vital part of growing up. Hardships seek to define an identity. These toils conveyed through conflicts, perspective, and character development help seek the identity. Identity can be discovered through hardships.
Harper Lee’s main character, Scout, states that, “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.(Lee 1)” The opening line of To Kill A Mockingbird announces the conflict and theme of the novel early on. Scout hints at …show more content…
First person allows the novel to witness “the experience of growing up (Shackelford 101).” Almost like observing a childhood form into adulthood before their eyes. Lee wrote this novel with her own childhood in mind. Scout closely resembles Lee when she herself was growing up and seeking out her identity. Furthermore retrospect plays an important role within To Kill a Mockingbird. An important piece of Scout’s identity stems from her retrospect of her mother when she says “Our mother dies when I was two, so I never felt her absence (Lee 7).” Despite the fact that Lee’s mother was alive unlike Scout; their mothers’ absent or near absent presence speaks through the story about their identity. Pip also narrates through first person; the novel emphases that a grown up Pip narrates his coming of age story, as Pip constantly explains things in past tense and fond recollection. Like Scout, Pip has matured into adulthood and recalls his childhood with bittersweetness. Dickens introduces his sister as, “My sister…was more than twenty years older than I… [And] she brought me up “by
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