Revised Open Prompt 3

1996. The British novelist Fay Weldon offers this observation about happy endings. "The writers, I do believe, who get the best and most lasting response from their readers are the writers who offer a happy ending through moral development. By a happy ending, I do not mean mere fortunate events -- a marriage or a last minute rescue from death -- but some kind of spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation, even with the self, even at death." Choose a novel or play that has the kind of ending Weldon describes. In a well-written essay, identify the "spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation" evident in the ending and explain its significance in the work as a whole.

Childhood has often been marked as a time of discovery and growth, where we learn to deal with the consequences of our actions, where the classic coming of age story begins. In To Kill a Mocking Bird, the young narrator, Scout, comes to an emotional and mental epiphany by the end of the novel as she is standing on Boo Radley’s porch.  Harper Lee paints a novel of Scout’s emotional development and eventual understanding of the world when ‘understanding’ one and another became a rare and novelty action.

To Kill a Mockingbird, is a classic novel about a young girl living in a small town, Maycomb, during a time where racial tension ran high. Through her experiences with her brother, friend and father, as well as a mysterious neighbor deemed “Boo” Radley, Scout, by the end of the story, comes to see the world from another person’s eyes.

Scout’s initial mindset at the start of the book was childish and immature, typical of a child, having no understanding or respect towards others. Scout’s description of Boo Radley was nothing short of a monster; she thought of him as a person who only came out at night, ate small animals, had teeth made for maiming things and bloodshot eyes. Although, by the end of the novel, after seeing an innocent man condemned and being saved by Boo Radley himself, Scout reaches a moment of emotional epiphany and growth as she stands on Boo Radley’s doorstep and sees the world, her world, from his point of view. Harper Lee uses a rather nostalgic tone as Scout describes seeing herself from Boo Radley’s doorstep many summers ago, making a play out of Boo Radley. This innocence that she possessed at the start of the novel has grown into maturity as she is able to do what her father said, to go “into someone’s skin and walk around in it”.

This moment of revelation in Scout’s life is central to the ongoing theme of the novel, the idea that one should treat another as he would like to be treated, no matter their skin color or of how you first judge them.  The novel’s title To Kill a Mockingbird directly relates to Scout and the plot of the novel as Tom Robinson, a falsely accused black man symbolizing a mockingbird is killed, because Scout no longer possesses the naiveté that drove her mostly white town to convict Tom Robinson in the first place. Instead, Scout has finally obtained the ability to see the world from another person’s eyes and realize that they are the same, that they are equal, to everyone else. So no longer makes fun of Boo Radley, sneaking into his backyard and leaves his doorstep with respect towards the man.

The ability to truly understand and empathize for a person may be more common known now than it was during Scout’s time. Since then, the world has grown more liberal but during Harper Lee’s time, a court may hold a guilty verdict simply for the color of a man’s skin. In her novel, Lee exploits this continuing theme in her time through the eyes of a child that has yet been taint by society’s corruption. She, instead, shows the insight that Scout achieves by using Boo Radley and Scout’s relationship as parallelism to that of a white and black man in her time. Only this time, Scout doesn’t hold a guilty verdict on Boo Radley, she comes to understand and respect him.