"Scout"ing Out Our Moral Compass by Sydney

"Scout"ing Out Our Moral Compass by Sydney - April 2014 Scholarship Essay

Many generations of American high school students have, in essence, come of age while reading and studying Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. While reading this book for a high school literature class, I, like many young girls, found myself relating to the character Scout.

Scout is a young tomboy growing up in a small town somewhere in the south. She is self-assured, tough and unafraid, having been raised in a home by her widowed father, Atticus with Jem, her brother. Growing up with all male companionship, she is not at all “girly”. She is a nonconformist, not concerned about how society feels she, as a young lady, should look and act. She is remarkably smart for her age, learning to read before starting school. Much of her independent personality is the result of her mother’s death when Scout was just 2 years old and the fact that she has been raised by her father. The father, a small town lawyer, interacts with his children more as little adults, teaching Scout and Jem how to be individualists and not necessarily conforming to expected behaviors. Early in the story she is an innocent, feeling that people are basically good. As the story progresses, she begins to see that there is a lot of bad in people while still maintaining her faith in mankind. She sees there is a lot good in the world as well but that good can be overcome, at times, by the bad. Unlike others in the story, she doesn’t despair because of the evils of this world but tries to rise above it.

Like Scout, I believe in the good in humanity but know the bad can exist just under the surface. While reading To Kill a Mockingbird, like Scout, I was appalled at the prejudice and injustice but also like Scout, encouraged by the good that I know exists in the Atticus Finch’s and Boo Radley’s of the world. In the pages of To Kill a Mockingbird, I also began to understand how my own parents have gently instilled morals in me and my brother that allow us to be a positive influence in society. Like Scout, I realize that it isn’t necessary for me to conform to the expected standards of society to have a strong moral compass. I like the direction my compass has led me and I know never to aim at the Mockingbirds.