Coming of Age
Coming of age is an important part of life. As a matter of fact during coming of age a lot of things are changed in your life, such as your perspective on certain topics. An important part of this changing topics thing is high school. kids think they will get beat up, but they will not.
Coming of age involves recognizing different perspectives. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird Scout is an example of a character who's coming of age process involves gaining a new perspective. Harper lee’s character Scout says that “‘Naw
Jem there's just one kind of folks. Folks”’ (Lee 304). When scout realized this she explained that one type of person is not better than another, but everyone is equal. The same source says
that
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When scout comes to the conclusion that people are hard to understand, and you have to make an effort to understand them she gained a new perspective. Gaining a new perspective through realizing people are hard to understand, or change shows coming of age. In the national geographic article “beautiful brains” David Dobbs shows how gaining new perspectives during coming of age helps individuals to be smarter and more successful. The article states that “[your brain] has already reached 90 percent of its full size by the time a person is six” (Dobbs 44). When you learn a certain topic when you are ages 0-6 you will pick up on it faster. The same articles says that “Our brains undergo a massive reorganization between the
12th and 25th years” (Dobbs 43). Learning between ages 12 and 25 helps you comprehend it better. You learn in different, better ways between ages 0 and 6, and 12 and 25. I was in Montana with a group of paleontologist looking for dinosaur bones. One of the dino-diggers told me where to look, but I did not follow her directions, and went somewhere else. I payed the price and got the scare of my life. I stepped one foot away from a prairie rattlesnake. I heard the rattle and jumped about ten feet back. Luckily I had a shovel
Coming of age is a young person’s transition from childhood to adulthood. The coming of age passage that I picked in the book, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, is from chapter 23, pg. 292. In chapter 23, Jem is trying to make sense of everything, after the jury found Tom guilty. Jem starts to cry, and can’t believe the injustice of his townsfolk. He barely ate and was taking little interest in normal activities. Atticus starts to notice and ask Jem what's the matter. Jem is mad Tom got convicted on circumstantial evidence even though Atticus defended him well. Aunt Alexander calls Scout’s friend, Walter, trash which upsets her. But Jem is there to help her get through. Jem says there are 4 types of people in Maycomb county. People like
In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee includes many coming of age moments. For example, I chose the part where Scout walks Boo home. Scout is the narrator of the book and Arthur ‘Boo’ Radley accompanies her in this scene. This is a coming of age example because near the end, Scout talks about how she felt she’d already learned what she needed to be an adult. Today I’ll be talking about literary elements in this passage.
There are many key scenes in To Kill A MockingBird that could be considered a “coming of age” scene. One major key scene that contributes to this is in the beginning of chapter 25. In the scene, Scout and Jem are sitting outside on the porch when Scout sees a Roly Poly . She was about to smash it when Jem told her not to. She asked Jem why she couldn’t and he told her, “Because they don’t bother you…” When Jem said this, Scout didn’t really care. She had thought “Jem was the one who was getting more like a girl every day, not I.” Jem seems to have hit his coming of age moment because in the particular scene, he seems more obvious to the world than he was before. This helps set up a theme that causing harm to the innocent is wrong until they are proven guilty of something bad.
As you can see Scout is a very inquisitive girl. Throughout the story she shows that the way her point of view is portrayed she is very wise beyond her years. Her inquisitiveness is what gives this book a deeper meaning in the way we treat other people and
Since the first spark of human life, coming-of-age has even occurred at the time of Adam and Eve. Many people think that the only part of maturing is puberty. However, one of the greatest parts of growing up is not, surprisingly, going through puberty. Coming-of-age involves recognizing different perspectives.
As scout is getting older she is learning more about what the town is like. She becomes aware of the things she’s done and the effects it has had on her and others around. This quote on page 278 shows her understanding starting to change.
When coming-of-age a person will be continually experiencing, and learning new things. As this happens that person will develop and gain new perspectives on life and the world around them. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout is found gaining new perspectives while she comes-of-age. In David Dobbs’ article “Beautiful Brains”, he shows and explains how gaining new perspectives is a part of coming-of-age. Developing different perspectives is really what coming-of-age is all about. It causes an individual to see the world in a new light, which widens their knowledge and helps them to fully come-of-age and grow
To Kill a Mockingbird has two major genres that it can be shelved under; Bildungsroman and Southern Gothic. A bildungsroman, otherwise known as a ‘coming of age story’, usually focuses on one character as they ‘come of age’ and ‘grow up’ in either a mental or physical sense. To Kill a Mockingbird has more than one character experience a ‘coming of age’, but the character who ‘grew up’ the most was Scout. Over the course of the novel, she learned a multitude of lessons that helped shape and carry out the ending.
“I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks,” is a compelling statement made by Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, the narrator and main character in Harper Lee’s controversial novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Scout, a second grader, has to grow up in a small, Southern town in the midst of the Great Depression, and where severe racism and prejudice was prevalent. Scout may be a young character, but because of her traits and actions, she is one of the most mature.
There is a time in everyone’s life when they reach a certain age where they go through a period where they come of age. To come of age means that a person reaches an age when they discover something they didn’t know before and they learn it when they come across something significant. In the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, author Harper Lee uses the theme of coming of age with her character Jem Finch. Throughout his coming of age experience Jem encounters the tree, the gun, and the camellias which teach him some important lessons that he will benefit from in the future.
Harper Lee, in the realistic-fiction novel To Kill A Mockingbird, uses a variety of literary elements to aid in the overall development of the theme. All of the characters are going through some sort of coming of age experience or enhancing someone else's experience as well as their lives all the while being greatly impacted by the racial discrimination and injustices that occurred all around them. An event in the novel that expresses this is the court case of Tom Robinson, or more specifically, Atticus’s, Tom Robinson’s attorney, closing argument. During this Tom Robinson is wrongly accused of raping a white girl in their town of Maycomb, and Atticus decides to defend him as his attorney despite the town's clear racial biases and preconceived stereotypes on people of color; this greatly impacts Atticus’s daughter, Scout. To show this Harper Lee uses setting, plot and conflict to enhance the development of the novel and put forth the theme. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee uses these literary elements, plot, conflict and setting to develop the idea that the presence of racial inequality leading to the undermining of justice impacts the coming of age for Scout on a variety of levels.
Every person experiences a diverse moment in their life in which their maturity reaches its peak, but it happens at distinct times for different people. The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is about the life of the a young girl, Scout Finch. As the story goes along, Scout becomes more and more mature from the beginning to the end. She witnesses and sees things that force her mind to develop and adjust to everything, which continues to increase her maturity. The theme of maturity in To Kill a Mockingbird is shown through Scout throughout the whole story. She shows how mature she is when she’s a young kid and experiences meeting Dill, going to school and having Walter over for dinner, when she encounters and meets Boo Radley, and when
When many people are children, their parents, grandparents, or anyone who poses as a parental figure tell them that they will become more mature with age. However, psychological maturity is mainly learned rather than simply accompanying a person’s ascent into adulthood. Inevitably people grow, but this statement proves the experiences a person has in their life, whether good or bad, will change the path he or she takes while growing up or even continuing his or her adult life. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Jean-Louise “Scout” and Jem Finch are six and ten in the beginning of the book, respectively. Although they gain only three years by the end of the novel, the children develop even more mature mindsets than many of the physically grown-up people in the town. Three events that prompt this early maturation are a conversation that takes place between Atticus and Scout, Tom Robinson’s death, and the ordeal with Mrs. Dubose.
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is a first person narrative describing the life of Jem and Scout, a brother and sister who are the main protagonists of the novel. Jem and Scout grow up in a town where they are constantly surrounded by racial inequality, social unrest and prejudice. Jem Finch is considered a normal young boy growing up in the small Alabama town of Maycomb. Like his friends Jem likes to likes take part in activities that are perceived to be masculine in nature such as sports. Yet the way he is raised is very different than his friends and his upbringing is considered to be against the cultural norm of the time. Harper Lee creates the character of Jem to show the reader
Coming of age is an influential part of many people’s lives. They begin to leave behind their innocent childhood views and develop a more realistic view on the world around them as they step forward into adulthood. (Need to add transition) Many authors have a coming of age theme in their books; specifically, Harper Lee portrays a coming of age theme in his book To Kill A Mockingbird. Through the journeys of their childhoods, Jem and Scout lose their innocence while experiencing their coming of age moment, making them realize how unfair Maycomb really is.