The code of chidlhood

We talked last class about how both “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Catcher in the Rye” rely on the perspective of a child for their narration. This strategy is effective (or attempts to be) because of a general belief regarding children, the idea that they are innocent, objective, and see things that adults cannot. However, I find Scout interesting because she in some ways definitely has a child’s perspective that we find endearing and admirable, however she shows maturity far beyond her age. Is that what Lee intended by picking her as a narrator? One moment in the text when I really thought of this is when Dill was hiding in Atticus’s house. When Jem went to rat him out, Scout says “Then he rose and broke the remaining code of our childhood” (159). I think it’s interesting that Lee brings up this idea of a “code,” almost a separate system that children and adults function in. In the novel this can be seen a little in the make believe worlds and scenarios that Jem, Dill, and Scout create. So much of these small stories are built around parts of the “code” that constitutes their childhood – not touching the Radley’s house, what to do about the secret hole in the tree, how to wake Dill in the middle of the night. I think in this novel the code is more universally understood or applicable than in “Catcher” – there I think Holden wants to think that he’s living according to his own ‘code’ but it is the reader that sees him caught between the rules of childhood and rules of adulthood. However, there is still flexibility in Scout’s narrative. The fact that she can make a comment about the “code of childhood” implies a maturity and consciousness that at the same time suggests that she is moving past childhood herself. I think it is this juxtaposition, this awareness of childhood combined with a simultaneous ability to see past it, that makes Scout such a powerful narrator.