Secondly, Harper Lee has used the way a child will act if something is wrong has happened to demonstrate childhood. “The world’s endin’, Atticus! Please do something -!” This quote exemplifies Scout is innocence and being childish. As children do not have as much knowledge as an adult would have, therefore children would think that the world is ending when there is a fire or some other serious event occurs.
Thirdly, the write always convey childhood as her retrospect to remind the reader that she is not a child any more but an adult. This can be shown by the way when she wrote as a narrator and the way she wrote as a child in the conversation. At the beginning of chapter 11 she reminds the reader that she’s older now by saying, “When we were small….” We can interpret that the write wants the reader to understand that she is trying to present childhood. Whereas when there is a conversation, which involves a child, the language she would use is informal, slang and using words that sound as it spelt. “You gonna give me a chance to tell you? I don’t mean to sass you, I’m just tryin’ to tell you.” This portrays Scout is being told off by Uncle Jack. Harper Lee is trying to use informal and slang language to shows it is happened during childhood.
Finally, she uses childhood to build up and let the reader to find something out, such as the first chapter of the novel. “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.” This quote is taken from the first line of the first chapter. It is impossible for the reader to know the reason why Jem has broken his arm without reading it further and further. We can infer that the writer is trying to let the reader to find out the answer by reading the novel.
In conclusion, she has used many different methods of showing childhood in the novel, one of the ways is to use anecdotal in a fragmented style to indicate childhood, such as the mad dog instance. The author shows that she uses her memories of childhood to tell the story. Also from the mad dog instance, she has reveals that the children have learnt their lesson from it.