To Kill a Mockingbird Growing Up

In Harper Lee’s book “To Kill a Mockingbird” Jem , Scout , and Dill live in Maycomb , Alabama around the time of the 1930’s they all were struggling through racism and poor family’s trying to get by. Harper Lee’s first and only novel “To Kill A Mockingbird” was published during the civil right movements. In this book Jem, Scout, and Dill tend to have courage and loyalty through life and in their relationship toward one another . Jem and Scout are brother and sister, Dill is a friend of the family but they accept him as a brother. Although, Jem and Dill have the most exceptional relationship out of them all. “ To Kill A Mockingbird” the impact racism had on society shows through the setting , characters , and town of Maycomb , Alabama .

As a result of Atticus's decision, Jem and Scout get into a number of fights with classmates and their cousin when they taunt them and call Atticus a "nigger lover." Life seems to be full of lesson for Scout and Jem. For example, when a rabid dog chases Scout, she discovers that her father, whom she previously thought too old to do anything, does possess some talents. Atticus turns out be a crack shot, killing the dog in one shot at a great distance. Another time the children learn to be tolerant of people who have problems even though they say mean things. A neighbor, Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose, derides Atticus and spreads lies about him, and screams insults at the children when they pass by. Jem gets very angry at her and cuts off her flowers from her bushes. Instead of siding with Jem, Atticus feels that what he did is wrong and as punishment, Jem has to read out loud to her every day to take her mind off her predicament. Atticus holds this old woman up as an example of true courage as she

Atticus’s son, Jem, finds trouble with Mrs. Dubose; this caused a change in her character. Jem becomes angry with Mrs. Dubose because of her comments about Atticus to him and Scout; out of anger Jem “cut the tops off every camellia bush Mrs. Dubose owned, until the ground was littered with green buds and leaves” (103). When Atticus became aware of Jem’s actions he sent him down the street to apologize to Mrs. Dubose for what he had done. As a punishment, Mrs. Dubose asked that Jem to come to her home and read to her every day for a month. As asked Jem did bringing Scout along each day. After a month had went by Jem was asked to continue coming to read to her. Jem was not a fan of the idea but he did not want to disappoint Atticus so he did as he told him. Later, after Mrs. Dubose passes away, Jem is informed of why the reading was important to Mrs. Dubose. She had a morphine addiction and reading to her was helping her to break her habit. Jem

The book “To Kill a Mockingbird”, by Harper Lee is about Scout Finch and her older brother Jem living in Maycomb, Alabama during the great depression. Scout and Jem spend a lot of their time watching over Boo Radley's house with Dill, their friend. Scout and Jem's Dad, Atticus, agrees to help a black man, Tom Robinson, by being his attorney where Tom is accused of Rape. The theme, Do not judge a person before actually getting to know them, is show in many different ways.

a) Atticus Finch is a wise, single father. He is a qualified, intelligent and distinguished lawyer practising in the south of Alabama in a rural town named Maycomb. Atticus has a high moral integrity and is bred from an upper-class background. He has a brother named Jack Finch and a sister named Alexandra. Atticus has two children named Jean-Louise Finch and Jem Finch. Jem is a quiet, studious boy who loves reading and football. Scout (Jean) is a tomboyish, confident girl who loves rolling in mud in her overalls and reading any book she can get her hands on. Maycomb is a close knit, old and

Throughout the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem matures through three important stages of his life. Within these stages Jem’s experiences such as creating plays about Boo Radley, reading to Mrs. Dubose, and processing the Tom Robinson trial all taught him

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

In Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, the author follows the childhood of the main character known as Jeremy Atticus Finch. He is the son of lawyer Atticus Finch, and older brother of Jean Louise Finch, also known as Scout. The family lives in a fictional town called Maycomb, Alabama. In their early lives, the two siblings were infatuated in figuring out the secrets of the Radley family, especially Boo Radley, in the house down their road. At the beginning of the story, their curiosity plays a big part in their lives. This builds during their many experiences and gives the readers a better sense of the characters’ traits. Jem Finch plays one of the key roles in the storyline and has a very brave, emotional, and protective personality.

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, there are many characters that demonstrate heroic qualities. The story is narrated by a young girl named Scout Finch who lives in Maycomb County Alabama in the 1930’s. There is a lot of racial prejudice in Maycomb County and Scout’s father, Atticus, is a lawyer defending a black man named Tom Robinson. In the novel, Atticus, Scout, and Scout’s brother Jem have to overcome many insults and bullying because Atticus is defending a black man. While the trial is going on, Scout and Jem befriend their mysterious neighbor whom they have never even seen. Through this friendship and the trial Scout and Jem are able to open their eyes to the injustices and prejudices of the people of Maycomb. Scout, Atticus, and Tom Robinson are all heroes in the small town of Maycomb.

We can all agree that children have different illusions about what the world is really like around them. Harper Lee's novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is a bildungsroman that shows how a young girl named Scout grows up in Maycomb county with her father Atticus and her older brother Jem to guide her. The novel is set in the 1930’s in Maycomb county, a southern town where most of the neighbors get along with each other. Some of the neighbors have secrets that only the adults know, but eventually Jem and Scout find out what those secrets are, which challenges the illusions they have about their perfect little hometown and the friendly neighbors that live around them. In To Kill a Mockingbird it demonstrates a theme in the book about how things you believe to be true when you’re a child turn out to be different as you start to see them through adult eyes.

Dubsose Lee shows one of the most important scenes of maturation in the novel. Lee intentionally gives the reader a very negative impression of Mrs. Dubose, describing her as so “vicious” that the Finch siblings feared walking by her front porch in fear of “being raked by her wrathful gaze, subjected to ruthless interrogation” and name-calling (99). Mrs. Dubose is one of the adults that regularly throw insults at the children about their father Atticus for defending Tom Robinson. One particular insult causes Jem to reach his breaking point and he retaliates by cutting down Mrs. Dubose’s camellia bushes, which she values very much. Jem is unable to control his emotions and he disobeys his father when he cuts down the bushes. Lee uses the camellia flowers to symbolically represent Mrs. Dubose and the rest of Maycomb’s racist residents. Lee shows the reader how by trying to protect his fathers name; Jem does something regrettable and destructive. Through this scene Lee shows how hate creates more hate and how the answer to solving a problem is never retaliation. Lee uses Atticus and Mrs. Dubose to convey how trying to find the good in others can benefit

In chapter ten of To Kill A Mockingbird, Jem gets angry at what Mrs. Dubose said about him and his family, so takes scouts brand new baton and chops off the top of her camellia buds and then he snaps her baton in half. As Jem and Scout make their way to town Mrs. Dubose who raked them by her wrathful graze, subjected to ruthless interrogation regarding our behavior, and given a melancholy prediction on what we would amount to when we grew up, which was always nothing She criticized how Scout dressed, how Atticus was defend tom, a black man, and how Atticus let them run wild. When Atticus found out that Jem had chopped the top of her bushes off, he made him go apologize to her. Mrs. Dubose then made a request for Jem which was for him to read

To begin with, Jem and Mrs.Dubose have a person vs. person conflict as Jem and his little sister, Scout bound down the street Mrs.Dubose lives on. Mrs.Dubose spits harsh words about Atticus, (Jem’s father), in Jem’s and Scout’s faces. “Your fathers no better than the nig*ers and trash he works for.” (To Kill A Mockingbird, pg.117). When Mrs.Dubose

He also sees that Atticus, even though he is obviously on the losing side, crusades for justice and the principles that he holds true to. Through both of these events, the author shows that Jem learns what true courage really is. Another place where Jem is shown to be mature is when the place where he found the gifts is filled up: “someone [fills their] knot-hole with cement”. This causes him lament his loss in communication with Boo by crying: “[Jem] had been crying; his face was dirty in the right places” (83-84). His action show he has overcome his childish portrayal of Boo Radley as a devilish figure into a human being with emotions. After his incident with his mysteriously folded pants, he realizes that Boo Radley is an amiable person. Before he makes wrong assumptions of Boo with Dill, he now is mature enough to understand what he actually is. Through all these experiences, Harper Lee shows Jem matures by learning about true courage and to judge people based on their actual self and not appearances.

"Overnight, it seemed, Jem had acquired an alien set of values and was trying to impose them on me: several times he went so far as to tell me what to do" (p.125) - Jeremy Finch, one of the main characters in “To Kill a Mockingbird. Jem ages from 10 to 13 throughout the course of the novel and his change in maturity is undeniable. His journey from youth and innocence to maturity and knowledge is drastic. Interestingly, the changes he undergoes are seen from the point-of-view of his younger sister, this gives a unique perspective on his growth.