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Similes
Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Scout's Literacy:
In Chapter 2, Scout must deal with a conflict at school. The entire situation is ironic, forcing Scout into a confusing position. She reflects on this issue with her teacher:
I suppose she chose me because she knew my name; as I read the alphabet a faint line appeared between her eyebrows, and after making me read most of My First Reader and the stock-market quotations from The Mobile Register aloud, she discovered that I was literate and looked at me with more than faint distaste. Miss Caroline told me to tell my father not to teach me any more, it would interfere with my reading.
Scout knows how to read, and this literacy should be rewarded in school, where literacy is the goal. Ironically, it is not, because her teacher has a different idea about how learning "should" happen. This is clearly frustrating for a very young Scout, who does not understand why the method matters, as long as she is capable of performing the task. She feels slighted by what she perceives as injustice.
This conflict can be read as representative of a broader clash between small town rural culture and government institutions. When bureaucrats attempt to regulate the behavior of locals in small towns, those people will often lash out against what they perceive as government overreach, like Scout does here.
Related Themes:
