When you are a child the people around you have a huge impact on the way you grow up and see the world as you get older. For example, in the story To Kill a Mockingbird, there is a young boy named Jem who is son to a lawyer named Atticus. Jem starts off very immature and ignorant because he doesn’t understand the seriousness of peoples actions; as time goes on and he learns more about the people of Maycomb, the small town they live in, this allows him to be more mature and be able to make the right decisions when it comes to the way he treats people and who he associates himself with. He will start to learn how to be a good young man and how to lead himself to respect. Harper Lee shows coming of age in the story
Jem is growing up and almost thirteen. He is starting to act like a teenager because he is very hungry, moody, and always telling Scout to leave him alone. While he is excited to become more mature, Scout is still a child. (Coming of Age.) Calpurnia also calls him “Mister Jem.” and treats him more like an adult. Scout is upset that her brother pushes her away and won’t play with her anymore. She asks questions about his strange behavior and doesn’t get why he acts like he does. She will go through these changes when she is older but since she is still so young, it’s hard to understand his
Courage is not strength or skill, it’s simply standing up for what you believe in and what is right. This is the theme that was enrolled after Jem destroys Mrs.Dubose’s camellias and after she died in chapter 11. This passage also reveals Jem’s coming of age moment. After using conflict, symbolism, and point of view, Harper Lee was able to connect the theme with Jems coming of age moment.
When certain situations happen to people with good morals, they feel empathy for those who do not understand people as easily. In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird, a respectable lawyer and his children are involved in many unique experiences that help them learn necessary life lessons about society during the 1900’s. Scout and Jem learn a particularly important lesson about racial injustice when their father takes on a life-changing case. Upstanding characters show empathy more than others since good morals lead to self-respect and happiness, it allows people to appreciate the good around them. Throughout the novel, exemplary characters like Maudie Atkinson, Atticus Finch, and Scout Finch demonstrate empathy for characters who don’t
Many philosophers say; “The most challenging part of growing up is letting go of what is comfortable, and moving on to something unknown.” This quote strongly applies to the maturity process of Jeremy “Jem” Finch, a lead character in Harper Lee’s award-winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Jem struggles to understand his role in society as the picturesque facade of his sleepy southern town is destroyed, revealing the darkness underneath the surface. In this coming-of-age story amidst of a race war, Jem navigates the hardships of maturity. He is aided by the guidance of his father, who plays an integral role in the conflict of the small town as the court-appointed lawyer of an African-American man falsely accused of assaulting a white
As Jem Finch grows up, he changes his perspective changes. He teaches- or tries to- Scout to see the other side of the story. In the beginning of the story, when Dill was first introduced, Dill had suggested doing a make believe game of Boo and his family. Jem agreed to go along with the game and took immense pleasure in partaking in it. As Jem grew up, he began to mature and his perspective began to form and take a different shape. He began to teach Scout the rights and wrongs of life. “Overnight, it seemed, Jem had acquired a set of alien values and he was trying to impose them on me…(Lee 153),” through this quote, Harper Lee tells the change of perspective that Jem has undergone. By showing in the beginning of the story that Jem is making fun of others around him and now him trying to teach Scout what is right and wrong in life, Harper Lee expresses that his change of perspective is warranted and is not bad as other may think. Throughout Jems life, he learns that the arguments he had made are coming from a single minded perspective and not a logical form of many perspectives, he learns that not all other perspective are
Maturing is something everyone goes through in life whether you go through it early or a little later in life. In the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee shows a lot about maturing. Growing up in a small town in Maycomb, Alabama where life was a lot more different from today, you mature much different and in different ways. Jem is one person who matures through the whole story and makes realizations about people around him, including his dad, Tom Robinson, and Mrs. Dubose.
Throughout the story Jem shows a huge amount of maturation. The book starts when Jem is about ten years of age and still acts like a young boy. He loves to play with his toys, make up games to play with Scout and Dill, go on adventures, and many more. As the story develops so does Jem. With each day that passes Jem seems to becoming more and more like his father. “ JEM WAS TWELVE. He was difficult to live with, inconsistent moody. His appetite was appalling, and he told me so many times to stop pestering him I consulted Atticus: ‘Reckon he’s got tapeworm?’ Atticus said no, Jem was growing” (pg 153). As Jem is dealing with more complicated issues, one being puberty, he is starting to grow up and develop a more
Throughout the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem and Scout 's perception of courage drastically changes their behavior as they mature. They learn a lot about courage throughout the novel from their father Atticus and what they learn from him influences their choices and opinions. Although Jem is older than Scout, they both experience change in their behavior. At the beginning of the novel, Jem is still a young boy. He is defiant towards Atticus, he plays all the usual childhood games with Scout and Dill, and he engages in the younger children’s obsession with Boo Radley. As the novel progresses, Jem becomes less defiant and more understanding of adults. Jem witnesses the physical and moral courage of his father before and during the trial of
To begin with, Jem exhibits his maturity through his actions. Lee demonstrates Jem’s advancing age when he tells Atticus about Dill hiding in their house. Jem does this against his friends’ wishes; Scout even
He starts to understand the meaning when he is forced to read to Mrs. Dubose. Jem then goes on to further his knowledge at the trial of Tom Robinson. Finally Jem understands moral integrity throughout the course of the novel by watching his father Atticus. In the beginning of the novel Jem is a rowdy young boy. At the end, Jem has grown and learned. The reader can see this through Jem’s reaction after Scout brings up Hitler. Jem has obviously matured and understood what it means to have moral
Coming of age is a process that comes once in everybody’s life. This process has many results such as gaining strength or getting clever. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, a young boy, named Jem, gains maturity, higher level thinking, and empathy skills when he matures. To reveal Jem’s transformation, Harper Lee crafts the story in a meticulous manner and uses purposeful passages and quotes. One such passage is on pages 301 to 304. In the beginning of their conversation, Jem consoles Scout after the incident with Aunt Alexandra. However, the passage mostly focuses on Jem’s conversation to Scout. They argue about society and meanings of difficult concepts such as background. Lee uses this academic argument to establish that Jem has changed from the beginning of the story when he was childish and brash. In the passage, Lee uses the literary elements of characterization, setting, and parallelism to show Jem’s coming of age.
During the early 1900s , racism was dominating the south. Jim Crow Laws gave blacks little rights and made it almost impossible to live a normal life. In court, judges and juries were filled with white men. Biases and racism over run court rulings. A black man winning a trial over a white man was unheard of. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee illustrates the difficulties of being a black man on trial. Tom Robinson, a black man, is on trial for a crime that he did not commit. Atticus Finch, Tom’s lawyer and the father of Jem and Scout, attempts to overcome the barriers of racism and keep an innocent man from being found guilty. In her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses the symbolic significance of the snowman and fire, the mad
What makes a good father? It is someone who is a leader, someone who always wants what is best for you. Especially when times get rough. Over time parenting has changed and grown in many different ways. Authors tackle the ideal parent and different parenting actions and views. Harper Lee in, To Kill A Mockingbird shows many different types of parents. As a single father, character Atticus Finch stands out the most. He shows he is a good parent as he provides important life lessons to his children and others. He shows fairness to others and his kids especially. Lastly he shows that you should always stand up for others no matter what.
As punishment, Atticus makes Jem go and read to Mrs. Dubose each afternoon. Scout goes with him. At first, each reading session is cut short by Mrs. Dubose's strange fits, but over the month the sessions get longer and the fits slowly disappear. Soon after the reading sessions end, Mrs. Dubose dies. She leaves Jem a single white camellia flower. Jem is horrified, but Atticus