Jem Coming Of Age Essay

Words: 804
Pages: 4

Harper Lee wrote a novel in 1960 titled To Kill a Mockingbird, and this story spoke of young Scout and Jem living through an event that would shape them forever. Both the children go through a coming of age in this novel, but above all it’s Jem that changes the most. The plot of the story is that Atticus Finch, a local lawyer in the small town of Maycomb, is given the task of defending a black man against a white women. Tom Robinson is said to have raped and beat young Mayella Ewell, and this is not the case. However, a deeper subplot is embedded along with this court case. From start to finish Jem is a different person, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally. Through these adventures and struggles Jem would become a man.
Scout is a extremely rambunctious girl, and in the early stages of the book she beats up Walter Cunningham. Jem steps in and invites
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At the beginning of the novel Scout describes an incident that happens at the end of the novel. This incident is Jem breaking his arm. Boo Radley is seen as a evil hermit that eats raw cats and squirrels, and Jem follows this belief to a tee. But at the end who saves Jem from Bob Ewell’s vicious attacks? Boo Radley. Without him Jem and Scout would surely be dead, and this is a great example of irony in Harper Lee’s, To Kill a Mockingbird.
To Kill a Mockingbird has been regarded as a “coming of age” novel. If viewed to a deep extent some could see Scout coming of age most, but it is Jem that realizes the harshness and dangerous traits of America. During this time period he is forced to live through events different from any other child’s life. The novel starts with him trying to get “Boo” Radley out of his house. By the conclusion of the novel he has stood up to his own father, read to an elderly women, and even broke his arm struggling with a man trying to hurt him and his sister. These events shaped him to be the character he is at the