How does Scout become more mature after listening to Tom Robinson's testimony in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird?

The whole novel chronicles the events in Scout's life that lead her out of childhood innocence into a more understanding mind of the ways of the world. Scout's experiences with kids at school, Miss Maudie, Mrs. Dubose, and Boo Radley all teach her about the Southern world around her. Tom Robinson's trial must have been one of the most profound experiences that helped her to mature because it brings out all of the good and...

The whole novel chronicles the events in Scout's life that lead her out of childhood innocence into a more understanding mind of the ways of the world. Scout's experiences with kids at school, Miss Maudie, Mrs. Dubose, and Boo Radley all teach her about the Southern world around her. Tom Robinson's trial must have been one of the most profound experiences that helped her to mature because it brings out all of the good and the bad of one little community. Not much is said about how Scout feels after she hears Tom's testimony, though. She has to take Dill outside to calm him down and misses most of the end of it. However, most of her feelings are painted by the way she parallels the death of the dog that Atticus shot with the way the verdict was delivered. Scout describes the delivery of the verdict of the trial in the following way:

"I saw something only a lawyer's child could be expected to see, could be expected to watch for, and it was like watching Atticus walk into the street, raise a rifle to his shoulder and pull the trigger, but watching all the time knowing that the gun was empty. . . A jury never looks at a defendant it has convicted, and when this jury came in, not one of them looked at Tom Robinson" (211).

Just the fact that Scout makes this parallel between Atticus shooting a dog and the guilty verdict is a mature frame of mind. She sees that when her dad was asked to kill a mad dog, he was given all the tools to accomplish the task. But when he is asked to defend a black man in the South in 1935, it was as if he didn't have a bullet to help him shoot down all the prejudice facing the trial. This realization helps her to see that life isn't as fair as she'd like it to be.

After the trial, Scout obeys adults better and she listens better. She does a very good job at one of Aunt Alexandra's missionary teas by not jumping down the company's throat when they say racist things. She follows the leads of Miss Maudie and Aunt Alexandra by wearing a dress, saying polite things, and practicing becoming a lady.