There were many instances throughout the introduction of To Kill A Mockingbird where Scout didn’t fully understand others or their ways of thinking. She mostly thought that her way of doing or saying things was the only one, and had a tendency to get angry and physical when things didn’t go her way. On her first day of grade 1, she encountered many conflicts, two of which were provoked by her knowing how to read and write. It annoyed Miss Caroline and led her to insist that Scout stop reading with Atticus. After that, the dispute was about Walter Cunningham. He didn’t have a lunch, and when miss Caroline offered to give him money that she suggested he would pay back, he refused. Scout then stood up on his behalf to inform Miss Caroline of the Cunningham’s financial struggles and honor to not take what they couldn’t pay back. When she did, Miss Caroline punished her.

In the following chapter, Atticus taught Scout a valuable lesson that provided a good demonstration of the novel’s acceptance and tolerance aspect: ”First of all,” he said, “if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view— until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” (pg 39)

This made Scout learn the importance of accepting others even when she disagreed with them. She had to consider that others live different lives and see things from other points of view. Her effort to do this can be seen twice in the introduction: the first one was during her talk with Atticus where she says, “…if Walter and I had put ourselves in her shoes we’d have seen it was an honest mistake on her part. We could not expect her to learn all Maycomb’s ways in one day, and we could not hold her responsible when she knew no better” (pg 40). She was starting to see through new eyes and that changed everything: the way she acted, the things she said, her maturity… In fact, it might have been why she was so against Jem and Dill trying to look into the window of the Radley house. It isn’t written in the book, but from looking at quotes like “Jem, please—“ (pg 69) and “Dill, no,” (pg 71) I can tell that she didn’t like the idea of bugging Boo and that that was probably because she knew that if she were him, she would not want them to. Unfortunately, because of her unwillingness to be called a girl by Jem and Dill, she felt obligated to go along with the scheme. That’s alright, though, because she at the very least thought it through and considered the negative outcomes as well as the impact it would have on Boo Radley.

The second time Scout applied this skill was after the whole ordeal of Nathan Radley firing a shotgun and Jem losing his pants. She said, “As Atticus had once advised me to, I tried to climb into Jem’s skin and walk around in it: if I had gone alone to the Radley Place at two in the morning, my funeral would have been held the next afternoon. So I left Jem alone and tried not to bother him.” (pg 77) Again, we see growth in Scout’s personality. This quote is important because she actually applied it to her actions by not bothering Jem. Something as small as just “leaving your brother alone” might seem like an insignificant accomplishment, but it’s different from what she would have done otherwise. If all of those events had taken place in the first chapter, for example, she might have constantly pestered him about it, asked him questions, and maybe even punched him (as that seemed to be her way of solving problems with Walter). It’s small, but there was an improvement. This is why what Atticus said to her is so important: it was the initiating incident of her growth and development from that aspect.