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Examples Of Loss Of Innocence In To Kill A Mockingbird

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A Loss of Innocence And A Gain of Maturity Have you ever experienced something that you still think about today? Or have you experienced something that you wish never would have happened? Throughout To Kill A Mockingbird Scout and Jem face many of these things, and at a young age too. During the story and the situations they find themselves in, a loss of innocence is evident. When the children experience all these things it changes their perspective of the world they live in. Throughout the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout and Jem’s father, Atticus, teaches them many valuable life lessons. One of these many lessons Atticus taught them was when Jem ruined Mrs. Dubose’s camellia bushes in a rage and has to make it up to her. When Mrs. Dubose says that Atticus is not any better than the “niggers and trash he works for,”(Lee 117) Jem loses his temper and breaks Scout’s baton while using it to smash and destroy Mrs. Dubose’s camellia bushes. What Mrs. Dubose said was very out of line and disrespectful. However, Atticus warns Jem about her …show more content…

As Sheriff Tate is reading the jury’s votes,”Guilty...guilty...guilty...guilty…,”(Lee 240) Scout describes Jem gripping the balcony railing so tight his knuckles turn white and wincing at every “guilty” he heard. The ruling ruling is very unfair. On the other hand , for many reasons, it could have been predicted. Then when Jem makes it outside to Atticus, he is saying,”It ain’t right.”(Lee 242) over and over again. Jem is obviously upset about the outcome of the case. For one, Jem has grown up seeing his father work as a lawyer for many people in many cases, just not like this one. So when Atticus lies it all out there and Jem is satisfied with his father’s work, he does not even really consider the idea that his father would lose this. But when the jury displays its’ biased opinion Jem’s world is flipped upside

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568 Words | 3 Pages

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem, or Jeremy Atticus Finch, is Scout's brother, and throughout the story he changes and matures a lot through a series of stages. First, you have the event that caused this, the trial, then you have the influence that it put upon Jem ,and lastly, how he had overall changed from the experience. After Tom's Trial, when Tom is deemed guilty and goes to jail, Jem is mad because he feels it's unfair. Jem realizes that his outlook on law was rather naive and that there's much more to it, and that his ways of thinking were childish as shown when he is speaking to Atticus, “How could they do it, how could they?’’

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1404 Words | 6 Pages

Frequently in life, it is said that the harmony and relationship between positive and negative must coexist in every situation. To Kill A Mockingbird, a novel written by Harper Lee, tells the story of a young girl, Scout, and her brother Jem, as they grow up in a segregated American south. Their critical coming of age lesson can be seen in the children’s experiences with Mrs. Dubose, an angry, insulting woman who is later revealed as a courageous figure that battles her morphine addiction by her own means. In chapter eleven of To Kill A Mockingbird, Jem acts out against Mrs. Dubose in defense of his father and family through destroying her prized, beautiful camellia bushes. As punishment, Jem’s father Atticus condemns Jem to read to Mrs. Dubose

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811 Words | 4 Pages

Knowing this, Jem concludes that the Maycomb County justice system needs unbiased people to join the jury. Here, Atticus is telling Jem that if he were on the jury, the outcome would have been different, “‘If you had been on that jury, son, and eleven other boys like you, Tom would be a free man. ’”(294) This shows that even Atticus, a lawyer, agrees with Jem that the justice system is wrong. With Atticus agreeing with him it shows that Jem is saying intelligent things and that he is not saying things that are random and

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838 Words | 4 Pages

This is when Jem destroys Mrs. Dubose’s flower in rampage with a baton. This is after Mrs. Dubose calls Atticus and his family “Lawing for niggers,” (135) and went even further after clearly hurting Jem and Scout by saying “What has the world come to.” (135) In these racist attacks on Atticus’s morals and his family’s Atticus is able to keep cool and have Jem figure things out for himself.

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565 Words | 3 Pages

Many people went through this throughout the story. For example, Scout lost a lot of her innocence in this because she didn’t know people could be so barbaric in the world. She learned that it is so easy to lose innocence in life. Atticus served as a very wise person in the story. Atticus says, “...you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it “ (30).

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1030 Words | 5 Pages

Everyone goes through life growing up and maturing. Even though Lee also emphasizes the effects of growing up leading to the loss of innocence and purity of one. In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, Lee implies that growing up can lead to loss of innocence, especially in troubling times.

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626 Words | 3 Pages

Jem especially is upset with the ruling and “His face was streaked with angry tears as we made our way through the cheerful crowd. ‘It ain’t right,’ he muttered, all the way to the corner of the square where we found Atticus waiting,” (Lee, 242).

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437 Words | 2 Pages

Being a lawyer is not the easiest thing to be, trying to prove one’s innocence or even guiltiness in the court of law. In Harper Lees To Kill A Mockingbird, A man by the name of Atticus Finch is a lawyer for the town of Maycomb County trying to prove the innocence of Tom Robinson for the rape of Mayella Ewell. Atticus’s arguments throughout the case make valid strong points to persuade the jurors to see his innocence by trying to prove that Tom never laid a hand on her and that Tom never raped her. During the first part of the trial in chapter 17, Atticus calls up Mr. Bob Ewell, Mayella father, to testify.

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646 Words | 3 Pages

Within the next few chapters, the jury is in decision of Tom Robinson being Guilty or not. Everybody suffering over the next few hours. It came time for the verdict. Tom Robinson was guilty. Jem and Scout devastated afterwards.

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716 Words | 3 Pages

The Universal Loss of Innocence As children, we are often protected from the outside world, as we should be. As a human race, we have the instinct to protect our young and keep them from any kind of harm that could pose a threat. Such young ears or eyes shouldn’t be exposed to something as harsh and cruel as the society we live in both today or 60 years ago. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, you see the same concept exercised in the small town of Maycomb with Jem, Scout, and Dill. As honest and open as Atticus is, he knows when something should be bent to a more positive idea or when to not inform them of something, but as they age throughout the story, the blatantly obvious cruelties of the world get harder and harder to mask or filter out.

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1045 Words | 5 Pages

Jem and Scout learn many valuable life lessons throughout the novel and although they “grow up” at a much faster rate than other children in Maycomb, they will become people that have lots of wisdom and have been exposed to the real world. The experiences that the children have throughout their childhood help them solve problems, think wisely, and shape their

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743 Words | 3 Pages

Children are very impressionable people. Almost everything around them changes them in some way. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the main characters, Scout and Jem, start out as little kids who spend their days making up stories and playing sill games. Then their dad, who is a lawyer, takes on a case defending a black man who has been charged with rape. Since they live in Alabama, The whole family has to absorb some pretty ugly things, which forces Scout and Jem to grow up quickly, and it gives them a different and more mature view of the world.

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1313 Words | 6 Pages

Jem was walking by Ms. At Dubose's house, she is a racist white lady who is losing her mind in her old age. Ms. Dubose speaks against Atticus for defending Tom Robinson and that sets Jem off leading to the cutting of all of her White Camellias that she grew in her yard. As punishment, Atticus sends Jem to read to her every day after school for a few hours. After a while, she was met with death and as a parting gift Atticus comes back with a present to Jem from Ms. Dubose, “Jem opened the box.

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479 Words | 2 Pages

In To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Jem, and Scout have the strength to endure the hate they may get from their father’s decision to represent an African American man due to them having a strong connection to their dad. Jem and Scout believe in their dad and his decisions; they don’t let people talk badly about their family since they stand together. Due to Atticus deciding to take on the role of defending an African American man, the kids had been met with many nasty comments from people all around. In school Scout had been faced with a young boy Cecil trying to rile Scout up and get a reaction out of her by yelling disrespectful things at her. Sadly that was not all, an elderly woman Mrs. Dubose had also screamed and terrorized the kids

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965 Words | 4 Pages

Whenever they would walk past her house, she would shout hateful and insulting comments at them. Atticus told them to not let her comments affect them. One day, Mrs. Dubose made a comment about Atticus defending Tom Robinson. The comment was hateful and racist toward Atticus and Tom. Jem was angered by her comment and fueled by rage, cut down all of Mrs. Dubose 's camellia bushes.

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