American dancer and choreographer Martha Graham stated that, “Age is the acceptance of a term of years. But maturity is the glory of years.” This quote depicts maturity as not being based on age. Many adults in To Kill A Mockingbird spread rumors and judge each other based on their class. While these adults are busy gossiping and judging the townspeople, the children are figuring out the real stories behind these rumors and are not looking down upon the families of lower classes. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee shows how even children, in some cases, are more mature than adults.
Miss Stephanie, a young adult, is the town's’ main source of rumors about Boo Radley, and takes as much delight in the ghoulish details as the rest of the townspeople do. Once Miss Stephanie said that she woke up in the middle of the night and saw him looking straight through the window at her. She said his head was like a skull looking at her. Miss Stephanie also claimed that Boo stabbed his father in the leg with scissors. These stories seemed untrue. Miss Stephanie has no proof that Boo did any of the actions she claims he did. Even when the Finch children begin to believe that these rumors are not true, the adults in Maycomb are still convinced that Boo is a monster.
Jem began to in maturity throughout To Kill A Mockingbird, and he
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It’s an attitude built by experience. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Maycomb grows as a more respectable town. The kids have been through so much and have grown in maturity even though lots of adults still have not. Harper Lee has Atticus say, “If you can learn a simple trick you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Scout and Jem finally understand this trick and they end up not only physically growing, but also growing in relationships and
Each and every person will go through a coming of age experience sometime in their life. Those experiences can come in different forms. But, each coming of age experience ends up shaping us to become a mature adult. In the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee tells a coming of age story through Scout Finch, an aging girl’s point of view. Her brother, Jem Finch who experiences coming of age before Scout, realizes that being an adult was not what he hoped. Jem recognizes a different perspective of bravery from Mrs.Dubose, a vile, elderly woman’s perspective. In chapter 11, Harper Lee uses literary elements such as character, conflict, and setting to establish Jem’s new outlook on life.
In the beginning of the novel, many falsehoods by the townspeople portray Boo Radley as a villain. These misleading opinions, very apparent in the adult community, are well illustrated by Miss Stephanie Crawford. She helps skew the children's impressions. Since Atticus, although often interrogated, does not want to create a breach of etiquette, he refuses to speak about the Radleys. Therefore, Jem receives most of his information from Miss Stephanie Crawford, a neighborhood scold, who insists she knows the whole truth about the Radleys. It is from Crawford that the children learn of Radley's scissor attack on his father and other such interesting rumors. Thus, Arthur Radley is labeled as a "hant", a possibly insane and dangerous man, and the "malevolent phantom” (Lee, pg. #). The latter comes from the fact that Radley had not been seen for many years, and was beli...
The way and rate that people mature at can be directly attributed to the values and beliefs of the society that surrounds an individual. It is undeniable that society’s perspective on many controversial issues will generally be adopted by the younger generations in a given society. Moreover, the exposure to significant events, coupled with the major influence of family members, can have an enormous impact on how an individual matures. Additionally, family members greatly help each other develop into moral adults by instilling in each other values that will ultimately determine an individual’s character. In Harper Lee’s timeless classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, the constant reiteration of Atticus Finch’s values, in conjunction with the exposure to significant events, assist in Jem and Scout’s maturation into virtuous adolescents.
The quote by Zora Neale Hurston, “There are years that ask questions and years that answer,” shows that coming of age is a tricky project that takes time and effort. In Harper Lee’s book To Kill a Mockingbird, she writes about Scout Finch, the narrator, reflecting on her past and the challenges she went through in her hometown, Maycomb, with her brother Jem and childhood friend Dill.. Harper Lee uses the young characters in the novel to show experiences, their role models, and conflict help shape a person from child to adult.
Childhood is a continuous time of learning, and of seeing mistakes and using them to change your perspectives. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee illustrates how two children learn from people and their actions to respect everyone no matter what they might look like on the outside. To Kill A Mockingbird tells a story about two young kids named Scout and her older brother Jem Finch growing up in their small, racist town of Maycomb, Alabama. As the years go by they learn how their town and a lot of the people in it aren’t as perfect as they may have seemed before. When Jem and Scout’s father Atticus defends a black man in court, the town’s imperfections begin to show. A sour, little man named Bob Ewell even tries to kill Jem and Scout all because of the help Atticus gave to the black man named Tom Robinson. Throughout the novel, Harper Lee illustrates the central theme that it is wrong to judge someone by their appearance on the outside, or belittle someone because they are different.
In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee discusses that children are forced to mature in times of crisis, as their innocence is stripped away from their naive ways of thinking. At the beginning, children are characterized as innocent little beings that think carelessly, without considering the consequences, and often see things superficially. However, this situation changes when the evils of this world was revealed openly, and it was inevitable that the children would lost some parts of themselves. They would no longer see the world as perfect and fair, rather they would come to understand that the world is actually judgmental and unjust.
Boo Radley is the next door neighbor of the Finch’s. He is an outsider of the community, because he does not leave the house. He got in some trouble as a teenager, so his father locked him up inside the house. After his father died, his brother moved in with him. While Boo was locked up inside is house, the people of Maycomb County made up stories about him. The legend of Boo Radley was well-known to the people of Maycomb. Jem describes Boo, “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.” (Lee ). Boo is an innocent character because all he does stay inside his own house, and does not bother anybody. Yet the entire town believes that he could be a murderer. Harper Lee is showing that if you do not fit into southern society, they will make you into an outsider and a bad legend. Another example of Boo Radley being an innocent character is when he gives a blanket to Scout. Miss Maudie Atkinson, one of the Finch’s neighbors, had a house fire. Atticus (Scout and Jem’s father) woke up the kids and made them go outside, in case the fire spread to their house. While Scout was not looking someone gave her a blanket, “‘Someday, maybe, Scout can thank him for covering her up.’ ‘Thank who?’ I asked. ‘Boo Radley. You were so busy looking at the fire you didn’t know it when he put the blanket around you.’”(Lee ). Boo Radley is an innocent character because he helped warm up Scout in the cold, yet Scout was still scared that Boo had been near here. Harper Lee is showing us that Boo could do a nice thing, and yet Scout would still be scared because of his reputation. Finally, another
What then can we learn from Scout, Jem, and Boo? That sometimes to understand things better or to do what’s right we need to become more mature. Boo shows that maturing to do what is right is something that Maycomb needs to do in order to save lives the way he did. Scout supports this idea by learning from Atticus and walking around in Boo’s skin and completely understanding his reasoning for his actions. Think of the last time you made a harsh or crude judgment upon someone, trying being a little more mature and put yourself in their skin; maybe you would have done the same thing.
In To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee utilizes the significant symbol of a mockingbird to convey the coming of age theme of knowing someone’s background before forming opinions. When Scout and Jem get airsoft guns for Christmas, Atticus knows they will go “after birds,” so he allows them to “shoot all the bluejays” as long as they do not “kill a mockingbird” because it is “a sin” (Lee 119). Through close analysis, the advice Atticus presents has a much deeper meaning to it than originally perceived. The “mockingbird” is a symbol for all of the innocent people that are portrayed unjustly and the “bluejays” represent the malevolent individuals. Also, Lee’s decision to use the word “sin” suggests that killing a mockingbird is absolutely iniquitous,
In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird Lee use’s ageism as if to illustrate the characters view point. To demonstrate when Jem mention to Scout "It's different with grown folks, we---" (Lee 184). Jem shows that he felt superior to Scout by a 4 year age difference which he thought it made him more Intelligent in his mind then his sister based on how he talked to Scout. On the other hand when Scout said "Atticus was feeble: he was nearly fifty. When Jem and I asked him why he was so old, he said he got started late, which we felt reflected upon his abilities and manliness. He was much older than the parents of our school contemporaries..." (Lee 118). This portrays why
Over all, the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee have grown and matured throughout the whole novel. Boo’s maturity development is shown when he faces his fear of being with the outside world, Aunt Alexandra having some difficulties facing prejudice but, becoming more accepting of others, and Scout developing and learning lessons that she could apply to her everyday life. It shows that no matter whom the person is or what their troubles are, they all grow and mature in their own unique ways.
Maturity is a coming of age when a person is growing emotionally and mentally. Maturity is gained by experiences and decision-making, thus learning from mistakes. This is evident in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Through characterization and symbolism Lee displays maturity. Jem Finch demonstrates growing maturity throughout the novel.
“Maturity is the ability to think, speak and act your feelings within the bounds of dignity. The measure of your maturity is how spiritual you become during the midst of your frustrations.” is a quote from Samuel Ullman. This describes the struggles that Jem went through by taking part in the community and trial and by also taking the risk of losing some of his friends and family in Harper Lee’s, To Kill a Mockingbird. Through Jem’s interaction with the racism of Maycomb, he became aware of the things around him. We all learn that it takes a strong person to overcome the barriers of society.
When children grow up, they face difficult problems, and. they learn to cope and take responsibility. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, is a flashback about two kids that spans over a few years. Jem ages from ten to thirteen over the course of the novel, and undergoes much change, as his sister describes him. Over the years, he is exposed to issues adults face, and eventually shows an understanding of racism and innocence. As Jem grows up, his view on courage also changes. Jem follows his father's footsteps, and gets much of his knowledge from him.
Take a moment to think, what would you do if you didn’t have your parents/guardians? How would you be acting? Where would you be? Adults have a big part in a child’s life not only because they are there to support them but being role models to show them how they should be acting and maturing over time. The novel “To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee” takes place in a small town named Maycomb and it has a great deal to do with children maturing over time and how adults come into place as role models. The 3 main role models in this story are: The father Atticus Finch, The house keeper Calpurnia, And the neighbour across the street Miss Maudie. In this essay you will be reading about how the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” illustrates how adult role-models directly influence the maturation of children.