Thursday, November 15, 2012

In To Kill a Mockingbird, would the story have been more effective from another point of view other than Scout? If so, whose? Why?

After having read the book, t may have been more
interesting to see things from, let's say, Boo Radley's perspective.  He's a character
we want to know more about, so we'd like to see him laughing at the kids as they roll
Scout up to his house in a tire, or see him laboriously stitching up Jem's overalls.  We
would find out more about him, of course.  BUT we'd only be able to see what he sees
from the vantage point of his window and the few times we know of that he leaves the
house. 


The same thing is true of each
character:


  • Dill would be interesting to follow,
    but he's not always there.

  • Jem is there, but he already
    knows many of the things Scout asks about or learns, so we wouldn't get as much
    information from him.

  • Miss Maudies is sassy, so I'd like
    to hear her tell the story; however, she's not involved enough to give us everything we
    get from Scout (and we'd miss the entire snowman
    episode!).

  • Aunt Alexandra is not around nearly
    enough.

  • Atticus is too adult--we learn about so many
    things as he's explaining them to Scout throughout the story.  We'd also miss all the
    Miss Caroline stuff.

The bottome line is that
Scout is the best storyteller for this story.  What we lose by her not knowing
everything we gain from her questioning of others--or their correction of her.  She's
funny, young, talkative, inexperienced, and in the middle of everything. 
Perfect.

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