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

Being Grown Means Conquering the Unknown “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.” In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch lives with his family of three in the unvarying, small town of Maycomb, Alabama. Scout and her brother Jem live their childhood to its fullest with their creative imaginations. As Atticus’s trial for Tom Robison progresses, Jem and Scout attempt to understand the community of Maycomb and how their father fits into it. Atticus works tirelessly against the prejudice he is burdened by and continues to be an honest role model that Jem looks up to. Over the three-year course of the novel, Jem matures from a small, immature boy,

Throughout the short course of three years, Harper Lee makes Jem’s transformation easily evident to readers. At the beginning of chapter one, Jem gives Dill a description of their neighbor, Boo Radley, and Dill becomes curious and wants to try to get him out of the house. Jem instructs, “if Dill [wants] to get himself killed, all he [has] to do [is] go up and knock on the front door.” (Lee 14). Jem acts nave and is extremely frightened by the mysterious Boo Radley. He invents games about the Radley’s and Boo Radley himself acts as entertainment for Jem’s childish persona. However, towards the end of the story, Scout confers with Jem about the different types of people in Maycomb and how they’re discriminated against. Jem announces, “Scout, I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all this time. it’s because he wants to stay inside.” (259). Harper Lee illustrates the beginning of Jem’s maturity and how he sees his community differently, in a darker, but clearer light. He can now understand why Boo Radley would rather stay in his house for years than live in a community filled with discrimination and