preview

What Is Coming Of Age In To Kill A Mockingbird

Decent Essays

Coming of age is a popular theme in many novels. These stories compel you to think about your life experiences and how they have made you who you are today. To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee about the coming of age regarding a 6-year-old girl nicknamed Scout and an 11-year-old boy named Jem in Maycomb, Alabama 1933 to 1935. Scout’s widowed father Atticus, must defend a black man who is alleged of raping a white woman. Harper Lee depicts the theme coming of age in To Kill a Mockingbird through the two central characters increasing understanding of individual's perspective and accepting their role in society.
At the beginning of the novel, Jem and Scout do not understand the perspective of a character named Boo. There is a family in the community named the Radleys. According to neighborhood legend Boo Radley at the time a teenager was to be sent off to a school as punishment for a petty crime. His father requested for the punishment to be waved in return Boo would never do such a thing again. It has been fifteen years and Boo has been seen by only a few people in the town. Boo’s father has passed on and yet Boo never leaves his house. The children of the neighborhood speculate that he is some sort of demon that kills small animals for food. Jem and Scout speculate why Boo …show more content…

We see this when Jem and Scout arrive at the realization of Boo’s motives and perspective in addition to when Scout starts to conduct herself as a woman as appropriate in her society. As a young adult, I am still in the process of growing and maturing. It is interesting to see what events had an effect on Scout and Jem in the long term and how their perspectives shifted as they grew older. It will be fascinating to see how my experiences will shape

Get Access