In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird, young Scout and her brother Jem begin to realize that the world may not be as pleasant as they might have thought it once was. At different times, both Scout and Jem start to learn that what they had always been told may not be necessarily true. Scout and Jem mature in very different ways; Jem starts to mature with age and experience, such as when he started middle school. He was easily annoyed with Scout but more aware of the world and more understanding of his father and was highly impacted by the trial, more so than his younger sister Scout. But Scout’s maturity began the night after she returned home from the mob at the jailhouse, she then realized the danger her father was in, and that the men that she stood in front of and talked too, were there to kill Tom, and were willing to hurt her father to get to him.
When To Kill a Mockingbird opens, Jem has just turned twelve and will start middle school. Jem’s maturity developed primarily mentally, but he also matured physically “‘Show you something if you won’t tell anybody.’ I said what. He unbuttoned his shirt, grinning shyly. ‘Well what?’ ‘Well can’t you see it?’ ‘Well no.’ ‘Well it’s hair?’ ‘Where?’ ‘There. Right there.’ He had been a comfort to me, so I said it looked lovely, but I didn’t see anything. ‘It’s real nice, Jem.’ ‘Under my arms, too,’ he said. ‘Goin’ out
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Jem knows this because he watched an obviously innocent man be imprisoned for a crime he did not commit, and all because of the color of his skin. Scout learns this when she realizes that those people were willing to maul her father all because he was representing and protecting a once again, obviously innocent man. Scout and Jem went from innocent and naive to not necessarily mature but definitely more aware and apprehensive of the world and society then the once