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Joe Spohn
period 5
5/12/11
In the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee the quote "'And you' – she pointed an arthritic finger at me – ‘what are you doing in those overalls? You should be in a dress and camisole, young lady! You’ll grow up waiting tables if somebody doesn’t change your ways’” states that the kids do what is comfortable for them and do not follow what they should be doing or wear what they should be wearing. (101).
This representation of having set clothes that children should wear has changed. According to the article “Types of Clothing That Kids Would Have Worn in the 1930s”, “Younger girls dressed in outfits with ruffles and embroidered designs. Older girls wore plaid skirts and white pique blouses. Summer shorts and weekend rompers were an acceptable form of casual fashion.” There is really no set dress code for most children today, even though, back in the 1930’s, the kids did not follow it.
Another quote that describes youth is "Jem parceled out our roles: I was Mrs. Radley, and all I had to do was come out and sweep the porch. Dill was old Mr. Radley: he walked up and down the sidewalk and coughed when Jem spoke to him. Jem, naturally, was Boo: he went under the front steps and shrieked and howled from time to time” (39).
This quote describes how the kids are very creative with their imaginations. They make up games and role-play the Radleys. They are also very suspicious of Boo and try to find out what has happened to him. They are only kids so they believe all of the gossip about the Radleys that they hear from the other neighbors. These examples of what Jem and Scout did have not changed between the 1930’s, when this book took place, and the present day. Children still play games to imitate things they have heard. They also don’t know where to draw the line by trying to get in other people’s business.
Another quote that describes the youth in To Kill a Mockingbird is “Well, if everybody in Maycomb knows what kind of folks the Ewells are they’d be glad to hire Helen... what’s rape, Cal?”
The kids in To Kill a Mockingbird are not only uniformed about why blacks and whites are segregated, but they are also naïve. They do not know what they are talking about or what they are involved with. Scout is talking to Cal about the trial of Tom Robinson and she does not know what rape is even though she has heard about the trial before from her father and other people. Another example of Scout reacting without knowing what someone is talking about is when she beats up her cousin for calling Atticus a “nigger-lover”. She does not know what this term means, but she still punches her cousin for calling her father it.