Living in a small town a boy named Jem matures his thinking and learns compassion which takes him on the journey of becoming a man. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a novel about two southern children Jem and his younger sister Scout who experience love, danger, and tragedy. Jem begins the novel as a boy but as it progresses he takes on a more adult-like thinking and shows compassion for others and the truth.
Jem initially acts childish but starts to think and act like an adult to decisions where he previously would take the immature route. Jem demonstrates his child-like thinking with his vivid imagination. Jem’s imagination has distorted his image of Boo Radley a neighbor with a mysterious past Jem fictitiously describes Boo as a person
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Jem, as a child, has little respect for life or Scout his younger sister. When Jem, Scout, and Dill are on the hill Jem takes revenge on Scout by “pushing the tire with all the force”. As a child, Jem does not realize how important life is. He pushes Scout extra hard because she made him mad not knowing she could get seriously hurt. As Jem matures he has compassion for life and a realization of how important life is. Scout was going to “mash” a roly-poly but Jem asks her to spare it “ Because they don’t bother you.” Jem does not want Scout to kill the roly-poly because it is innocent. Jem’s statement is very reminiscent to Atticus telling the children to never kill a mockingbird because “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy.” The court case brings out Jem's adulthood as he starts to understand the unfairness of life and has a newfound compassion for what is right. Jem tells Atticus “that it ain't right” when he hears the guilty verdict, although knowing he is innocent. At this moment, Jem loses his childhood innocence as he realizes that the case should have been innocent but it was not because of the people in his town. Jem loses his childhood belief that everyone will treat others fairly and now has a compassion for what is right. The decisions Jem is faced with like the roly-poly and the court case brings out Jem's compassion in his coming of age. In To Kill a Mockingbird Jem is no longer childlike because he no longer thinks and acts a child and shows compassion for others and the truth. Jem comes of age because he now thinks and acts like an adult and can be considerate of others. The experiences showed him compassion for life the need to do the right thing and the understanding that not everything in life is
Jem’s relationship with Scout changes as he matures in the story. He goes from a fellow conspirator and playmate for his sister to her protector, resembling Atticus more and more with every chapter. In chapter 4, they are playing a game enacting what they perceive Boo Radley to be like. Atticus interrupts the game and inquires whether the game was about the Radley’s or not. Jem lies, saying no in response. In page 40, Scout yells in confusion and Jem remarks, “Shut up! He’s gone in the living room; he can hear us in there.” This shows his mischievous behaviour and the fact that he is still
As To Kill a Mockingbird progresses, Jem takes definitive steps toward maturity with his actions in the tire and flower incidents, for example. He would later go on to repair the flowerbed he destroyed, and take greater care to protect Scout. Through his actions, we can see Jem develop a sense of morals and responsibility that would prove to be a lifesaver.
Lee expresses the theme of loss of innocence through the characterization of Jem. In the story, there is a trial occurring in which his father defends a clearly
Jem had changed throughout the story from acting like a child and doing things that children do to becoming more mature and taking part in the
As the novel progresses, both Jem and Scout are shown to mature, this is due to "To Kill A Mockingbird" being a bildungsroman novel. Through this coming of age process, we are actually shown Jem’s new found maturity enabling him to find empathy and acceptance regarding the Boo Radley myths, as he finally took his father’s advice to “climb into someone else’s skin and walk around in it” when he was explaining to Scout his epiphany that he “[is] beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut in his house all this time. It’s because he wants to stay inside.”
In the novel to Kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee, readers can see Jem finch mature and grow. He learns more about life but loses some of his innocence along the way. He had his own opinions on his father; Atticus Finch and Tom Robinson’s trial. Throughout the story he gains the knowledge of pure hate and how cruel one can be to another man. He realizes the idea of why Atticus feels the need to defend Tom. His thought of Maycomb began to change which corresponds to the idea that he lost a lot too. He then learns to not be segregational like the rest of the Maycomb crowd. Therefore, in the beginning of the novel, Jem is focused on playing games and wanting to learn how to shoot; however, by the end of the story, he learns the importance of defending
At the end of To Kill A Mockingbird Jem has progressed into a developed adolescent.
Jem grows and realizes his maturity as he reflects on his previous naivety. In To Kill A Mockingbird Scout tries reasoning with Jem after a trail has left him disappointed, she says there are “only one type of folks. Folks” (Lee 227) referring to the people in Maycomb Community but Jem disagrees saying “’That’s what I thought, too’, he said at last, ‘when I was your age”(Lee 227). This quote shows Jem reflecting on what he thought when he was Scout’s age back when he wasn’t aware of the racism in his community. His views back then were influenced by being in the Finch household where Atticus always treated everyone equally. Jem matured by
Jem is a character in the book “To Kill a Mockingbird”. He has many traits that make him an interesting character. Jem is adventurous, wise, and brave. Jem is adventurous when he never turns down a dare. He is wise when he realizes why Boo Radley never comes out of his house.
Everyone in life changes at one point and that one point is called maturing. Jem atticus finch has hit that point. Jem took his first step to maturing when he started acting like his father Atticus finch. He started doing everything his father does in his own way. Several characters have changed throughout the book, but Jem has shown many signs of maturing. He changed in lots of ways. He doesn't care about other peoples opinions anymore. He doesn't think about himself, he thinks about the people around him.
“To Kill a Mockingbird” is a novel written by the author Harper Lee that delves on the life of a little girl named Scout and her family. They live in a small boring town in Alabama called Maycomb. there are a lot of signs on the growth and maturity between Jem and Scout. Both Scout and Jem experience events that leads them to change the way they react to the people around them and the way they see life. Jem and Scout both went from being completely immature to a high level of maturity for their age.
In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Jem will make the transformation from childhood to adulthood when he realizes the prejudice and unjustness of the many people in society after the verdict against Tom. Jem was a typical kid before his transformation. He was playful, had huge curiosity, and frequently disobeyed his father’s commands. “... if Atticus ever said we couldn’t, Jem had thought of a way around it: he would simply change the name of the characters and then we couldn’t be accused of playing anything.”
Between chapters one and fifteen, Jem Finch’s character is partially revealed, but it also changes. He morphs from thinking and behaving like a young child to thinking and behaving like a young man. Jem is obviously a dynamic character, and is one of the most interesting characters in the novel. In the early chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem still thinks and acts like a child.
However, though Jem understands what a mature person must do, his thought process is still of a child as he tries to grow up too fast. He is part of a phase that all children go through as they turn from kids to teens. Kids start to realize that they are growing up and then suddenly think that they know everything there is to life. They talk in a formerly manner with adults rather than choosing to go play outside with their friends when in reality that is all they want to
Atticus’s statement confirms Jem’s role as a child witnessing these events, questioning adults’ roles as truthful human beings. Opening his eyes to the injustices of the adult world and the court system, Jem has now been exposed to the very thing that compels him to mature as a boy entering manhood. Jem is a character who largely develops over the course of this short story, To Kill A Mockingbird; his character begins as a young and innocent boy who ends up being exposed to a dark part of the world--the corruption of the court system. Through this pivotal point, his life shifts along with his age, slowly turning from a boy into a man. With this transition he is wrestling through, he realizes that the world is not perfect and justice does not always win out. His experiences, however, cause him to press forward in trying to understand justice and help him appreciate the work his father does, especially as a man of integrity. Interestingly enough, the very man he was afraid of in the beginning of the story, Boo Radley, ends up being the one who saves his life when he is attacked at the end of the story, giving him a glimpse of hope left in those most