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Growth In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

943 Words4 Pages

The idea of growing and maturing is foreign to a young child's mind, yet they're the ones becoming a better version of themselves. Readers see growth in Jem and Scout from how they are treated to how Scout thinks. Jem is being treated older by Atticus and Calpurnia, which is increasing his maturity. Scout went from age 6 to age 9 during the book. She learns how to create an opinion on a person and how to treat animals that don’t harm them. By changing perspectives, Jem and Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, show growth as you see their opinions change, demonstrating how moral values develop an increased level of maturity. Once Jem discounts Scout's level of understanding, Scout tries harder to show that she can understand more mature topics than people her age. During the trial, Jem tries to tell Scout to go home because the stuff they will …show more content…

During summer, Scout finds a roly-poly on the porch. As she was going to kill it, Jem stopped her: “Don't do that, Scout. Set him out on the back steps” “Jem, are you crazy.?” “I said to set him on the back steps.” Sighing, I scooped him up and set him on the back steps, placed him on the bottom step and went back to my cot” (Lee 319). Jem finds it unnecessary to kill the roly-poly because it is harmless so harming the bug would be unnecessary. He finds it unnecessary to kill the bug for the same reasons that Atticus taught them to never kill a mockingbird. Scout finds that Jem is being bossy, which makes her feel reluctant to listen to Jem because she doesn’t understand how he is looking at the situation. Jem’s moral values have grown and he does not want to harm something that can’t harm him. Scout learns from him and sees that Jem is right and she should listen. During this time in the book it is seen that Jem is starting to grow into a better person and with his morals changing it is starting to help Scout change

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Growing from a little toddler to a mature adult brings many changes. As a child grows, they begin to notice how the real world works, that life is not always fair, and that people are not always like they seem to be. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee presents Scout’s and Jem’s Coming of Age experience. She descriptively shows how there can be such change in a child.

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Jem shows maturity and growth throughout the novel. In chapter two of the book, it is Scout’s first day of school and she has a disagreement with the new teacher Miss Caroline. Scout let the teacher know she made a mistake trying to offer Walter Cunningham lunch money when he doesn't have any.

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Scout has come to the realization that Jem isn’t the childish boy she played games with when they were younger, but has begun his journey into adulthood. Jem growing up physically symbolizes him maturing as he faces challenges. Jem Finch grows up socially in a problematic world as seen by Harper Lee using the literary device of characterization. For example, when Jem and Scout are discussing the dynamics of the citizens of Maycomb, Jem comes to the realization that he, “’.beginning to understand

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Scout matures through the novel, from her interactions with Boo Radley such as when Boo gives Jem and Scout some gifts by putting them in the knothole of

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The clearest way to show Scout’s growth is through her perspective. Since the whole story is told through her point of view, we see how her thoughts change as time passes. Due to her closeness with other, like Jem, though, we are able to see how age affects them or their differences from Scout through their perspectives as well. An example of this is when Scout, Jem and Dill see Atticus be approached by a lynch mob. “I looked around and up at Mr. Cunningham, whose face was equally impassive.

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When he gets older he becomes more independent and refuses to listen to Scout. He starts to grow and to develop into a man. Scout is frightened by all this change. She wants it to be like when they were younger. Towards the beginning of the story, Scout and Jem are best friends and stick to each other.

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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.

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but then Jem says, “Don't do that, Scout. Set him on the back steps (Lee 319). After Jem says that Scout asks him why he didn't want her to smash it and Jem says, “Because they don’t bother you, Jem answered in the darkness. He had turned out his reading light.”

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As Jem matures, the changes that Atticus has on him grow more obvious to Scout, who has not yet reached that same level of maturity. Around halfway through the book Scout starts to notice new things about Jem, things that she has never seen before. “In addition to Jem’s newly developed characteristics, he has acquired a maddening air of wisdom. Oh Scout, it’s like reorganizing the tax

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“Jem, are you crazy? …” “I said set him out on the back steps.” (Chapter 25) Scout couldn’t help herself wondering what happened to Jem. She had not grown up that much yet, she was not able to understand how life worked between humans, animals, and insect like Jem did, but she knew he was changing.

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Now he knows that the adult world he is entering is a lot crueler than he thought. After this point, Jem has a place as an adult, and others recognize it. He is still maturing, but more gradually now. He is questioning his beliefs more than ever, such as wondering why people like Atticus don’t sit on juries. He is also still making discoveries like realizing that the class system is real and is separated by education.

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Throughout To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Scout first handedly experiences Jem growing and developing from a child into a young man. While Jem develops, Harper Lee uses Jem’s emotional growth and his actions toward others to prove how maturity can change a person over time. When Jem started maturing, he expressed immediate signs of puberty: uncontrollable mood spikes and consecutive periods of isolation are only several of the symptoms he showed. “He was difficult to live with, inconsistent, and moody.

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When someone goes through puberty a lot of changes occur including the most important one, the way they see the world. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, several times Scout feels that puberty is causing Jem to change, leading to a greater distance from each other. Jem has been seen as childish, fragile and sensible at times throughout the novel. In To Kill a Mockingbird, traumatic events and the way people reacted to it in the society caused Jem to learn important lessons and develop strong

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It was probably part of the stage he was going through, and I wished he would hurry up and get through it.” (238) In this quote, Scout is about to kill a roly-poly. Jem stops her and shows that he has grown kinder. Most young boys wouldn’t hesitate to kill a bug.

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