To Kill a Mockingbird Essay

An important event in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee is the trial of Tom Robinson who was accused of raping a young white woman from the lower class. This event had a huge effect on Jem Finch’s life. It was what triggered him completely losing his already disappearing innocence. This happened because the trial exposed many new things to him. For example, he saw his father extremely disappointed. This was significant because he was used to seeing him always in control. Jem also saw racial injustice, which shattered his view of how the world worked, making him grow up from an oblivious child, changing his life forever.
Before the trial Jem is initially a rambunctious young boy, unaware of the reality of what was actually going on in his society. Jem and his sister Scout would spend their days playing imaginary games and telling stories about the malevolent phantom, Boo Radley. Boo is a young man who was imprisoned in his house for antisocial behaviour in his teens and hasn’t seen daylight for years. “Boo was about six and a half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that’s why his hands were blood stained- if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off.” Jem’s wild description of Boo Radley illustrates his innocence, all the stories and rumours about Boo is something only a child would really believe, displaying how naive he was.
Through the trial of Tom Robinson, Jem began to understand. In the trial an outstanding amount of evidence was presented by Atticus Finch (Jem’s father) proving that Tom was in fact not guilty. But the odds were not in his favour, because he was black. In that time and place of society black people were treated as if they were less important than white people (often white people referred to them as ‘niggers’), which is why the all white jury found Tom to be guilty, condemning him to a punishment he did not deserve. Jem was extremely distraught by the verdict, he could not understand why it happened. This showed him racial injustice, something he had never been exposed to before. Racial injustice would be incomprehensible to a child so witnessing this stole his innocent view on the world, which made him mature. “Scout, I think I’m beginning to understand something. I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in his house all this time. It’s because he wants to stay inside.’ Boo was shunned by society because of anti-social behaviour as a teenager which made him never want to leave his home. Jem understood this and it shows that he is growing up and gaining perspective. Growing up makes Jem realize what he thought about Boo was untrue and he can now see how flawed society is, making him understand why Boo would rather be alone than amongst their judgemental, corrupt society.
Also as a result of the trial, Jem saw his father in a new light. Up until the trial Atticus had always been the one with all the answers, someone who he could always rely on. When the court ruled Tom Robinson as guilty, Jem asks his father how this could have happened. He answers “I don’t know, but they did. They’ve done it before and they’ll do it again and when they do it seems that only children cry. Goodnight.” This quote shows that Atticus cannot provide an answer wise enough to compensate for what has happened. Even though Atticus knew what the outcome of the trial was going to be prior to the trial Atticus feels disappointed and cheated by society and this is evident to Jem. Jem matures from this because he realizes that even his father isn’t ‘invincible’ and seeing this shattered the illusion all children have; that their parents are invincible. Jem seeing through this was a major part of coming of age for him.
The impact on Jem finch’s life from the trial of Tom Robinson is evident. Jem sees how predjudicial the society of Maycomb is and how his father reacted to this changed his perspective on life. Jem matures from an unworldly child into someone who has a better understanding of the world and issues involved in it.