What Is Jem Coming Of Age In To Kill A Mockingbird

Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird is a coming of age story in which a young girl, her older brother, and their friend are exposed to the harsh realities of the 1930s. The various events that occurred over two years helped shape their moral perspectives into the ones of mature adults. With the help from their father, family cook and caretaker, and intelligent but stubborn neighbor, they come to realize that not everything is as good as it seems. The novel is titled To Kill A Mockingbird because the story teaches the valuable lesson that to mistreat someone or something that has done nothing wrong is a sin. The mockingbird is a symbol that represents innocence and true goodness that should always be protected. To kill a mockingbird is to destroy
Children are perceived as innocence due to their lack of understanding and morality. Throughout the story, Scout's moral perspective develops from innocence towards grown-up because of the harsh reality she is exposed to. She learns valuable lessons and is given eye opening advice from Calpurnia, Miss Maudie, and Atticus. In fact, the mockingbird is first introduced to Scout when Atticus gives them the rule to not shoot mockingbirds because it is a sin. Miss Maudie explains the rule when she tells Scout, "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 sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." (pg. 119) The mockingbird symbolizes innocence and pure good that is to be protected. As a mockingbird, Scout is unprotected from the cruelty during Tom Robinson's trial, and soon changes her perspective of things. One of the things she looks at differently is Boo Radley. After Boo had given her and Jem small presents in the hole of the oak and he covered her with the blanket when Miss Maudie's house was on fire, Scout realized that Boo wasn't as bad as the town gossip made him out to be. Her realization was strengthened when she found out that it was Boo Radley who had saved her and Jem from Bob Ewell. Once Scout had escorted him home, making
After he had been locked up in the courthouse basement for supposedly stabbing his father with scissors, Arthur became a homebody. Curiosity and imagination have a way of creating false rumors, which is exactly what happened. In the beginning of To Kill A Mockingbird, Jem described Boo Radley to Dill:
"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 bloodstained—if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off. There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time." (pg.