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Jem's Change In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

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How do Jem and Scout change during the course of the novel? How do they remain the same? During the course of the novel, both Jem and Scout changed. Jem and his sister Scout are exposed to a lot of changes that in the end prompt them changing the way they perceive those around them and how life is in general. At the start of the novel Jem and Scout's relationship together is amazingly solid. We find that Jem is to a great degree protective over his little sister and would do anything to prevent her from getting hurt. A case of Jem's protective side is when Scout discovers gum in the tree hole and Jem immediately tells her to 'spit it out right now!' followed by telling her to 'go gargle – right now, you hear me?' He talks about all the gossip of the town, for the most part about Boo Radley and we see that he has an extremely distinctive imagination. This is indicated where he reveals to Dill about Boo Radley. "He dined on raw squirrels and any cat he could catch, that’s why his hands were blood-stained — if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off. There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time". Despite the fact that Jem is protective about Scout and hangs around with her a lot, he dislikes …show more content…

He states himself as a grown-up "it's different with grown folks, we..." which demonstrates a high level of maturity that must follow. Demonstrating that he has grown up is the when he begins to reduce the time he spends playing games, like the Boo Radley game and take up reading instead. Scout reveals to us that he had "outgrown the tree house" and how his "maddening superiority was unbearable these days, he didn’t want to do anything but read and go off by himself" This shows he wants to be more of a gentleman and follow the ways of Atticus, his

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In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, there are many dislikeable characters. But there is one character that is anything but that. His name is Jem Finch. Although at times Jem can be unkind, for the most part he is very generous.

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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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Scout started a between her, Aunty, and Atticus and it was causing more stress with Atticus and when Jem overheard Jem told Scout to leave Aunty alone. When Scout figured Jem was telling to do something she didn’t like it very much but Jem got angry and told her “now I mean it, Scout, you antagonize Aunty and I’ll-I’ll spank you” which is something an older adult would do like Atticus. (184) Now that Jem is different and more mature, he tries to calm down Scout in his own way so the situation doesn’t get bigger. By doing this Scout thinks that Jem is now telling her what to do and when she throws a fit he tells her she’s going to hit her.

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616 Words | 3 Pages

In Harper Lee's novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, there are many characters that mature and develop throughout the book. One of them is Jeremy Finch who is also known as Jem. At the beginning of the book Jem acts like a young kid would, and is often playing or hanging out with Scout and Dill whether it is the fun games they play over the summer, or just wrestling and play fighting with each other. As Jem grows up he starts putting himself in other people’s shoes and starts to question everything around him. He also begins to show more control over Scout and Dill when he spends time with them since they are younger then him.

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733 Words | 3 Pages

The best teacher is always experience. Throughout the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Jem, one of the main characters, undergoes many significant personality changes. Jem’s character changes through several experiences, the most prevalent of those being when Jem turns twelve, when he destroys Mrs.Dubose’s flower bed, and when he learns of the town’s racial bias. Jem’s personality underwent significant changes when he turned twelve years old. His new behavior was noticed by Scout, who described him as,”...

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587 Words | 3 Pages

Scout expounds on page 115, “Jem was twelve. He was difficult to live with, inconsistent, moody. His appetite was appalling, and he told me so many times to stop pestering him.” Along with that, he likes to be by himself, and his newly developed characteristics have alienated him from his sister. Additionally, midway through the novel, Jem learns what courage is from an unlikely person; it was the person who was a childhood enemy, enraged Jem by insulting Atticus, and caused Jem to destroy her camellias, Mrs. Dubose.

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666 Words | 3 Pages

In many cases, the readers see Jem becoming protective of whoever he is with, whether it be Scout of Dill or even Atticus at some points. The little things such as putting himself in front of Scout while they’re walking home, or telling her he’s not scared so she wouldn’t be, shows that protecting others his priority. He tells Scout to run but doesn’t run away himself. This shows how he values her safety over his own. Jem ended up getting hurt trying to get Bob Ewell away from his sister, attacking an unknown grown man to save his sibling, knowing he was likely to get hurt in the

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As the novel begins, Jem Finch appears to readers as a frightened boy. Lee directly implied Jem’s childish fears in the first paragraph of her book, saying, “When it healed, and Jem’s fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury” (3). As the quote states, early in the book Lee expressed where Jem’s childish fear started and how it eventually grew into more child-like brave actions. Lee portrays Jem as a frightened boy when, “Jem threw open the gate and sped to the side of the house, slapped it with his palm, and ran back past us, not waiting to see if his foray was successful”(15). This event describes Jem's childlike behavior to be perceived as brave by Dill and his little sister Scout.

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In the beginning of the novel, he was becoming reckless, and towards the middle and end of the novel, he was more mature. As Jem saw what it was like to be a gentleman from his father, he developed and was teaching Scout about these findings. In the novel it says, “Naw, Scout, it’s something you wouldnt understand. Atticus is real old, but I wouldn 't care if he couldn 't do anything- I wouldn 't care if he couldn 't do a blessed thing” (Lee 107).

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520 Words | 3 Pages

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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831 Words | 4 Pages

Jem starts off as an innocent, young boy who, through the book, becomes more wise and mature than any of the other characters. This is shown in chapter 24 when Jem is trying explain the social classes of people. “‘You know something Scout? I've got it all figured out, now. I've thought about it a lot lately

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822 Words | 4 Pages

‘It ain’t right’ he muttered” (212). Jem begins to take his anger out on Scout and uses what he deems maturity against Scout’s lack of as “He slapped me and I tried another left, but a punch in the stomach sent me sprawling on the floor” (138). Jem is a mockingbird because in his attempt to civilize situations and maturely fight for justice, he loses his

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1089 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout the novel, Scout indicates change and maturity in her actions. She learns from Atticus to understand a person by considering their perspective. Furthermore, first day of school starts and Scout is already in trouble because she can read. Later that evening, Scout tells Atticus she is sick and cannot continue school anymore. He tells her that she is going and Scout tells him about the bad day and school.

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615 Words | 3 Pages

As the story develops so does Jem. With each day that passes Jem seems to becoming more and more like his father. “ JEM WAS TWELVE. He was difficult to live with, inconsistent moody. His appetite was appalling, and he told me so many times to stop pestering him I consulted Atticus: ‘Reckon he’s got tapeworm?’

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531 Words | 3 Pages

Scout changed a lot over the course of this story. She was exposed to many events that led to her gradually changing her way of life. She doesn’t change as much as Jem does or as fast as him, but she still changes. She learns to mature, understand things better, and treat people with respect.

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