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How Does Jem Mature In To Kill A Mockingbird

Decent Essays

In the book “To Kill A Mockingbird” there are numerous coming-of-age events with Jem and Scout, who are brother and sister. Scout is a different type of girl, she wears clothes that make her look like a tomboy, has her hair cut short to her shoulders and is innocent and naive. Although, as the novel goes on Scout doesn’t fully mature or understand all of it but does learn valuable lessons about life. Jem on the other hand is changing physically and mentally, he's growing up. Scout and Jem grow up in a time of racial discrimination and segregation in Maycomb, Alabama. Yet, have a father who shows them a disparate perspective of thinking.
In chapter 3 of “To Kill A Mockingbird” Scout tells her father about her bad experience at her first day …show more content…

Atticus said to Jem one day “ I’d rather you shoot at tin cans in the backyard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit'em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” Scout then wondered what Attius meant by this, she’s never heard Atticus say to do something was a sin. She then asked Miss Maudie. She told Scout “ “Your father’s right,” she said. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird. “ What the motif of a mockingbird symbolizes is the good black people in the town, they don’t do nothin’ to nobody. They are simply …show more content…

Dubose’s camellia bushes with Scout's baton in chapter 11. Atticus then comes home from the office and begins with asking Jem if he was responsible for it. Jem then responds with “Yes sir.” His father, Atticus continued with “Why’d you do it?” Jem said softly “She said you lawed for niggers and trash.” Consequently, Jem must go clean up the mess he left behind and apologize to Mrs. Dubose he must also read to Mrs. Dubose where Scout tags along with him even though she doesn't have to. The children think of Mrs. Dubose as this vicious, grumpy and wrathful old women. Nevertheless, Atticus has something to say to this, he tells the children “She had her own views about things, a lot of different from mine, maybe. . . son, I told you that if you hadn’t lost your head I’d made you go read to her. I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you’re licked before you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. Dubose won all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew. “ Atticus is trying to explain to Jem that bravery isn’t someone holding a gun, Mrs. Dubose is one of the most bravest women according to Atticus. She broke her morphine addiction and she passed on beholden to nothing and no

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