Coming Of Age In To Kill A Mockingbird

If the body did not feel pain, it would not know to heal itself. Likewise, people would not know that there was something to be learned about society if they did not have negative experiences surrounding it. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird expresses this as an underlying message. Coming of age prepares people for the world, including its kindness and its cruelty, and coming to understand the evil present in it is an essential element in growing up. Two children in this novel, Jem and Scout, experience cruelty as they grow up around the time of the trial of a black man, Tom Robinson, as their father, Atticus, guides them. Jem’s encounters with the cruel aspects of the world lead him to rethink his beliefs, and are a fundamental part of

When first faced with evil in the form of Walter Cunningham’s lynch mob, Scout’s response shows her lack of understanding of people. Speaking of Walter Junior, she states, “First day Walter comes back will be his last” (Lee, 158). She acts irrationally, as she does not understand that despite his father having done something cruel, Walter is not necessarily cruel as well. After observing cruelty such as prejudice at the trial, Scout is not as shaken as Jem, but also eventually gets to the point of understanding that everyone has a reason or a background that influences their actions, thus making them less purely vicious. Scout has a small epiphany when she acknowledges, “Atticus was right [...] you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them” (Lee, 279). She demonstrates this understanding when she says of Tom Robinson’s accuser, “Mayella Ewell must have been the loneliest person in the world” (Lee, 191). Scout sees that Mayella’s cruelty has been has been influenced by her situation, which is more mature than Scout’s previously quick judgement of others such as Walter Junior, as explained above. Finally, exposure world’s cruelty forced Scout to develop a more mature coping mechanism. Near the end of the novel, in response to her classmates’ mockery, she and Jem “were compelled to hold our heads high and be,