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To Kill A Mockingbird Coming Of Age Analysis

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Children—with all their innocence and hope—all have to grow up sometime. Along the way they will need guidance from family and friends so that they will become individuals to be proud of. To Kill a Mockingbird is a story about fighting for what you believe in, even if everyone is against it. In this case a lawyer is defending an African-American man in a region where prejudice is a contagious disease amongst the people. Intertwined in that story is another story: children who must grow up in a racist town who must try their best to live by their fathers morals of loving everyone regardless of race. Harper Lee presents the world of children as vastly different from that of the adults yet still dependent on them, and describes coming of age as a slow process that requires patient guidance along the way.
The world of children through the eyes of six year old Scout as wildly different from the adult world. The two worlds are intertwined, but still have unique characteristics that identify them. Unlike the main adult figure, Atticus, who is often busy at work, Jem and Scout are either outside entertaining themselves, or at …show more content…

She conveys this through Jem and Scout’s reliance upon Atticus. For example, during the first winter in Maycomb County since 1985 is a good example of this. When Scout first sees the snow falling, she is startled and tells Atticus, "The world's endin', Atticus! Please do something--" (Lee 73). Because she is young and hasn't experienced a real winter yet, the snow is unknown to her and frightens her. This trait distinguishes her from Atticus, an adult who is familiar with the world and can explain things to her. Another example is during the fire of Miss Maudie Atkinson. When Scout remembers see left something valuable in their own house, Jem tells her not to worry because Atticus is not yet worried. Even when he is far away, he is their rock that supports

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In the 1930’s south, racism was at its peak, but one man with contrasting ideas, was willing to sacrifice his entire social standing to defend a negro. In Harper Lee’s, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Scout’s father, Atticus, taught her many things. He taught her how to shoot, not to fight, and most importantly, to stand up for her values. Atticus showed his children the importance of protecting their beliefs on a few occasions: when he took on Tom Robinson’s case, when he protected them from the mad dog, and when he raised them to judge upon character, not appearance. First and foremost, when Atticus took Tom’s case upon himself, he showed the importance of doing what you think is right, regardless of the consequences.

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The development of characters throughout the book, and what children learn puts it in perspective how children lack a complete comprehension of the world surrounding them. In the book, To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout learns about respecting other’s views and that everybody else does not understand how she mentally puts her learnings into context. The characters of Atticus as well Miss Maudie reveals to the reader a theme that is being shown by Harper Lee; maturation; Scout as well Jem mature throughout the short time that’s elapsed in the book, helped by the models listed previously. Atticus’ character is evident in this chapter. We see him teaching Jem and Scout about respect and other’s views.

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In “To Kill A Mockingbird”, the protagonist's father, Atticus, demonstrates how a good individual courageously decides to defend an innocent, black man although he and his

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In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem and Scouts changing perspective of Arthur ‘Boo’ Radley represents a coming of age moment because it demonstrates a breaking away from the childlike imagination that had previously explained all of their questions and superstitions about the Radley’s. A coming-of-age moment is the transition of thinking that occurs when someone learns empathy. At the start of the novel, in many situations, Scout and Jem demonstrate childish behavior and thinking when Jem is taunted into touching the side of the Radley home by Scout and Dill. The book reads, “Jem threw open the gate and sped to the side of the house, slapped it with his palm and ran back past us” (18). From this portion of the novel we can tell that Jem and Scout clearly regarded the Radley home and its occupants with novelty and even fear.

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In “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, children Jem and Scout Finch live in Maycomb County, Alabama, surrounded by a complex cast of characters that are prone to bigotry, greatly shaping the ideals and morals of the two as they mature. Both of the children change a great deal throughout the novel, making it easy to observe their views as they change throughout the novel. Catalysts to this change include their open-minded father, Atticus, prone to spouting wisdom to his children, helping them to apply this compassion to their lives. Jem and Scout grow substantially, by learning lessons of gradual acceptance, their beliefs, attitudes, and views of the world

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Continually, he realizes that the town he stood by has unethical values that blind the people in Maycomb. Harper Lee illustrates through the experiences of Jem and Scout that to come of age one must realize that society’s views on people are racist. To begin, Jem’s first signs of maturity is when he reads to Mrs. Dubose. In the novel, Jem ruins Mrs. Dubose’s flowers as a result of an offensive comment she remarks about his father. Mrs. Dubose says that Jem and Scouts father, Atticus, is a “nigger lover”.

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Miss Maudie does a superb job of this. Scout often goes over to Miss Maudie’s when Jem and Dill exclude her. Miss Maudie teaches her to respect others and stay positive in unfavorable times. As Miss Maudie’s house is burning down she jokes, “Always wanted a smaller house, Jem Finch. Gives me more yard.

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Scout admits she feels fine and Atticus asks her what is wrong. She tells him that her teacher, Miss Caroline, says that they cannot read together anymore because she is too advanced for her age. Atticus responds with, “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,”(Lee 39). Though Scout does not fully understand the concept of this lesson, it slowly comes to her as the book advances. She is able to make many connections using what Atticus taught her, and she truly understands the meaning of standing in another person’s shoes.

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Harper Lee uses Characterization to show the reader of her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, how different people and events impact children as they grow up and shape the kind of adults they will turn out to be. She shows how the people of Maycomb influenced Jem and how Scout’s view was changed by a single person. Lee also makes it evident that one event can change children’s entire perception of the

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As verbalized by the diarist Anne Frank herself, “‘Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands’” (Goodreads 1). Coming of age is a process depicted through movies and novels through the Bildungsroman plot line. The protagonist, in this form of a plot line, has to face society and its difficulties. The protagonist inclines to have an emotional loss, which triggers the commencement of the journey itself.

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Throughout the book people talk about how wrong it is for Atticus, one of the main characters, to defend an African American in court. The children in the book are told that their father is a disgrace and that he is ruining other people’s lives. For example, “‘...now he’s turned out a nigger-lover we’ll never be able to walk the streets of Maycomb agin. He’s ruinin’ the family, that’s what he’s doin’.’” (Lee 110).

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Everybody is given the stairs of maturity. The durability, the length, and the height of it vary from stairs to stairs. Unlike ordinary stairs, each step could take a day or years to climb up, and it is up to them if they will overcome it slowly, take a break, or come down with exhaustion. Though, how a person is able to climb up the stairs, isn’t random. It is dependent on their life experiences and the lessons from them.

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“To Kill a Mockingbird “is a coming of age novel. Discuss this statement, with reference to at least two characters. In the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” there is evidence of a coming of age story or lesson. Scout learns not to judge people and try and understand where they are coming from and to view a situation from their point of view.

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To Kill a Mockingbird is a story that takes place during the Great Depression in a small town located in southern Georgia in the 1930s. The book focuses on Jean Louise “Scout” and Jeremy Atticus “Jem” and their coming of age and the major events that made the two grow up. One of the events was the trial of the Mockingbird, Tom Robinson, in which their father, Atticus Finch, was defending Tom, a man of color. Mockingbirds are used throughout the book to represent people that were harmed by the society even though they were innocent. There is a common misinterpretation of the meaning behind the Mockingbird leading many to believe that Scout is the Mockingbird in the story.

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"I think that the best thing we can do for our children is to allow them to do things for themselves, allow them to be strong, allow them to experience life on their own terms, allow them to take the subway... let them be better people, let them believe more in themselves." — C.JoyBell C. (Goodreads) This quote is relevant throughout To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, because growing up is a tricky thing. You learn new things and experience more things. But if someone ties you down or shows you how to live your life, how are you growing up yourself?

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