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Coming Of Age In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

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Coming of age is an important time in a persons life.This usually happens to someone in their teenage years ranging from 12-14 years old. It’s important because it’s when a child starts to mature and look at the world differently, hence they start to understand different kinds of things and feelings. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, the book is narrated by six year old Scout Finch. It takes place in a small town in Alabama called Maycomb. Scout, her brother, Jem, and their friend Dill are intrigued by Boo Radley, their mysterious neighbor. An African American named Tom Robinson is accused of raping a white woman called Mayella Ewell. Atticus, Scout and Jem's father, defends Tom in court but he is unfortunately convicted. …show more content…

Jem was mad Tom got convicted, even though Atticus defended him the best he could. Atticus believes that when a conflict comes down to race, men can get irrational, “Whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, how fine of a family he comes from, that man is trash” (Lee 295). This means that as long as a black man is the defendant, no matter what he does, the white man always has an advantage because of his race. That’s just the sad truth that Jem had to learn during the Tom Robinson trial. And because of this we see Jem's maturity develop and grow.. After the Tom Robinson case, Jem came to the conclusion that his town wasn't as great as he thought it was. They were truly prejudiced people who were not nice. While Aunt Alexandra scolds Scout for wanting to have Walter Cunningham, someone who she views as trash, come over and have dinner, she gets really upset. She then privately turned to Jem for clarification. Jem explains to Scout that he’s been thinking about a social stratification system in Maycomb, and he feels the people of Maycomb can be broken into groups. Jem states that there are four kinds of people in Maycomb

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In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem and Scouts changing perspective of Arthur ‘Boo’ Radley represents a coming of age moment because it demonstrates a breaking away from the childlike imagination that had previously explained all of their questions and superstitions about the Radley’s. A coming-of-age moment is the transition of thinking that occurs when someone learns empathy. At the start of the novel, in many situations, Scout and Jem demonstrate childish behavior and thinking when Jem is taunted into touching the side of the Radley home by Scout and Dill. The book reads, “Jem threw open the gate and sped to the side of the house, slapped it with his palm and ran back past us” (18). From this portion of the novel we can tell that Jem and Scout clearly regarded the Radley home and its occupants with novelty and even fear.

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At the beginning of the story, Scout, like many others in Maycomb, holds racial biases influenced by the societal norms of her times. She witnesses the injustice faced by Tom Robinson, a black man wrongly accused of a crime he did not commit, Scout begins to question and challenge the discriminatory beliefs of those around her. “ I think there’s just one kind of folk. Folks." (page 259)

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