In To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee explores the idea of innocence through fear, discrimination, and naivety. When someone is still innocent they are highly susceptible to the thoughts and ideals of others. As they grow older their perspective advances and they no longer are as susceptible.

Fear is a powerful tool when one who knows how to wield it. Through the fear of Boo Radley people like young Scout who are innocent, often are highly susceptible to any stories or ideas about him. At the beginning of To Kill A Mockingbird Scout is innocent and as a result of that innocence we see her along with Jem give into these stories. Atticus explains “You never truly knows how a person feels until you consider things from their perspective. Until you climb into their skin and walk around in it”. At this point in the book Scout does not know how to use what Atticus has taught her and therefore still fears Boo. Her perspective has not changed and her view is still limited. There isn’t any discrimination happening, she’s just scared.

There have been many cases of discrimination in the past and present. While Scout is still innocent she is not influenced by society on who to be discriminatory to. Instead of being discriminatory towards Negros like the town is she instead discriminates towards people who live very different from how she considers “normal” We see an example of this when Walter Cunningham visits the Finches household. Scout was completely disgusted at how Walter handled himself and how he ate. From Walter’s perspective this is normal, but Scout considers it very undignified. She is still very naive.

With innocence and a limited perspective comes naivety. At the beginning of To Kill A Mockingbird Atticus’s only daughter is quite naive. After the Tom Robinson trail Scout’s perspective started to grow, after Jem and her get attacked and they find out it was book who saved her she learns to “walk into another’s shoe”. When she was innocent her perspective was clouded, but after the whole Tom kerfuffle and the attack her perspective opened up ten fold. She was no longer naive and her fear of him was gone.

In To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee explores the idea of innocence through fear, discrimination, and naivety. Her perspective was like dim headlights… she couldn’t see much. With Boo Radley, Scout was afraid of him due to all the untrue tales. She discriminated against Walter Cunningham because he lived differently, but through all this she was innocent and didn’t know any better. When someone is innocent they don’t realize their actions until they become not innocent. Her perspective was like dim headlights… she couldn’t see much.  The encounter with Boo Radley and Mr. Ewell shocked her out of it.