Examples Of How Jem Mature In To Kill A Mockingbird

s children get older, they start to mature and experience new things, some of which are not always pleasant. In “To Kill a Mockingbird”, by Harper Lee, this maturing is illustrated through Jem, who starts the novel as a small, disobedient child. However, as the story progresses, several changes can be seen in Jem’s personality and overall being. Jem starts to become colder towards Jem and Dill, stops partaking in the games that they used to play, and overall just becomes more like an adult. Lee highlights how the transition from a child to an adult can be sudden and rough through Jem by his experiences from a naive, reckless boy, to a mature and accepting young man. In the beginning of the book, Jem is shown as an immature and irresponsible child, but the reader can see his character change drastically throughout the book. More specifically, when Jem and Dill try to look into the Radley home, they are shot at by a man, who thought they were a black person (Lee 48). Jem’s actions highlight how he does not

Jem had thought that the Maycomb population was “good folk” and confidently believed that the community members would do the right thing and let Tom Robinson go (Lee 184). However, to Jem’s surprise, most of the jury had voted against Tom Robinson, even though evidence that he was innocent was undeniable. This leads Jem to start questioning the morality of Maycomb and shows Jem how prejudiced and racist Maycomb truly was, essentially creating a loss of innocence in Jem. Due to the results of this court case, Jem starts to lose his trust in people and learns that, in reality, Maycomb was a racist and biased society. Therefore, Jem’s loss of trust in the community and the question of morality edges him to face the reality of how America is in the 1930s, causing him to mature from childhood to