Based on Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, it can be said that one way in which Scout is imprisoned is through social restrictions. Since she is a girl, society, especially society in her time period, demands she behave in a certain way. Yet, Scout, being very independent, has her own views about how she wants to behave; she wants to behave as a tomboy.
We especially see Scout feeling imprisoned by society when she is around her Aunt Alexandra. Scout reports having quarrels with her aunt about her desires to wear overalls. When Aunt Alexandra moves in with the Finches to help raise the children by providing feminine influence, at one point, when Scout hears Aunt Alexandra and her father quarreling, she fears they are quarreling about Scout's behavior. More specifically, she fears Aunt Alexandra is trying to lay down some laws about how Scout should be being raised to behave. Scout reflects her fears in the following:
Who was the "her" they were talking about? My heart sank: me. I felt the starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on me, and for the second time in my life I thought of running away. Immediately. (Ch. 15)
Scout's reference to the "walls of a pink cotton penitentiary" shows us just how imprisoned Scout is by society's idea of her female role.
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