Jem Finch Maturity

Scout and Jem have only heard rumors of Boo, prompting their curiosity to find out more, thus their actions lead to poking into Boo’s life on his property. Boo was falsely accused of being a monster, stabbing his father with scissors, all of which were gossip that spread like facts. The children and Maycomb itself blames Boo and secludes him based on rumors not experience. All in all Tom Robinson, Jem, and Boo displayed the victim archetype.

Jem refuses to admit it, but he is terrified of Boo and the horror stories that lurk around him. When Dill challenges him to knock on the doors of the Radley Place, he unsurprisingly follows through because “he loved his honor more than his head” (13). The importance of preserving his reputation and pride overpowers his fear. After the incident, Jem becomes more assertive and constantly boasts about his accomplished feat; he believes that it was an act of bravery, conquering something that no one else dared to do. Dill incessantly tests Jem’s willingness to take on new risks and the Boo Radley Game is invented. The children mock Boo in front of the entire town on a daily basis, and Jem believes he is proving a point by doing a harmless, comical thing. Atticus catches them in the action, yet “[he] hasn’t said [they] couldn’t, therefore [they] could...Jem had thought of a way around it” (41). Like most kids, Jem is brutally honest and goes off of what he hears and what is in plain sight. His doings are prompted by the innocence he still has as well as his lack of exposure to the darker sides of the world. He is unable to make higher-level connections or construct advanced ideas about his environment yet, showing that he is no more mature than the next child.

“Jem and I hated her. If she was on the porch when we passed, we would be raked by her wrathful gaze, subjected to ruthless interrogation regarding our behavior, and given a melancholy prediction on what we would amount to when we grew up, which was always nothing.” (Lee, 113) Scout explains, Mrs. Dubose, in nastily vivid detail to the reader one day, as she and Jem pass by. “Cords of saliva would collect on her lips; she would draw them in, then open her mouth again.

Jem initially acts childish but starts to think and act like an adult to decisions where he previously would take the immature route. Jem demonstrates his child-like thinking with his vivid imagination. Jem’s imagination has distorted his image of Boo Radley a neighbor with a mysterious past Jem fictitiously describes Boo as a person

When he shows that he isn 't a bad person, it shows how gossip has affected him so much that he needs to prove them wrong and show the good of his heart. Jem and Scout are fascinated and long to see Boo, but Scout is not sad when she sees that Boo isn 't freakishly large and bloody, but is glad to see a human, that might of just saved her and Jem 's life.

Mr Radley was ashamed of his son’s behaviour when he got into the wrong crowd as a youngster and punished him by locking him up. There is a lot of gossip around Maycomb about Boo and people blame him for any bad things that happen in the neighbourhood, ‘Any stealthy crimes committed in Maycomb were his work.’ Jem turns him into a monster, ‘his hands were blood-stained’, and ‘his eyes popped’. At the end of the novel however, we find that Boo is misunderstood, and gossip of the town’s folk has made him up to be a ‘malevolent phantom’. Scout tells us he is timid, he had, ‘the voice of a child afraid of the dark’.

In the book, Scout and Jem are inadvertently deceived about Boo Radley. Boo is a shut-in whose reclusive lifestyle is viciously commented on by the residents of Maycomb. The gossip spurs Scout’s and Jem’s fascination with Boo Radley and drives them to incorporate Boo into their games and activities.

Dubose who struggles to beat her morphine addiction before she died. He wanted to show his son what true courage was, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. ?It?s when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.? (Page 112) In addition, Atticus is a perfect role model. He demonstrates a strong sense of bravery by refusing to carry a gun to protect Tom Robinson from angry farmers. ? ?After all, though,? I said, ?he was the deadest shot in the county one time. He could?? ?You know he wouldn?t carry a gun, Scout. He ain?t even got one?? said Jem. ?You know he didn?t even have one down at the jail that night. He told me havin? a gun around?s an invitation to somebody to shoot you.? ? (Page 217) As a result, Jem stood up and refused to leave his father during the showdown with the farmers at the jailhouse.

Boo Radley demonstrated personal stewardship toward Jem and Scout discreetly and openly. In the beginning, Boo would leave treasures in the tree for Scout and Jem to find. Without the children's knowledge Boo was watching out for them. Boo covered Scout with a blanket the night of the house fire without being noticed, and Boo saved the children's lives in the end. Boo remained a protector of the children, even though he was aware of their beliefs of himself.

Although they beg and plead Atticus to teach them how to shoot, every time Jem or Scout asks Atticus tells them no. Jem and Scout do not understand why he says no and Scout starts to think Atticus is kind of boring. Atticus also being much older than most parents of kids in her age group does not help. After Scout and Jem see “One Shot Atticus” kill the Robinsons dog however, Scout changes her mind on her father being lame. Scout says "It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived." This quote shows Scout realizes that not everything is quite how it seems. Her boring father actually has an interesting past but he chooses to never shows off to his children. The neighbors told Scout that Atticus had put down his gun unless he was in an emergency, because Atticus felt that it was unfair of him to have an unfair advantage over killing animals. It can be implied that Scout respects her father even more than she did before because it no longer matters that Atticus is not like the other fathers, Scout thinks he is the best father she could ever

Scout and Jem were given air-rifles by their uncle Jack. With these new toys Jem started to have an interest in guns but Atticus wanted no part in the whole ordeal. Atticus says, “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”(90). Lee uses this to point out the symbolic mockingbird and its deeper meaning of true innocence. When Atticus tells the children that it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird because they do no harm it can be traced to Tom. Tom had been falsely accused of rapping a woman and when a mocking bird dies so does its its innocence. As time swifts buy the children still have dirt on them because of the trial, this dirt causes both Jem and Scout to get attacked but luckily they are saved by a man known as Arthur “boo” Radley. This man had been cooped up in his house his whole life so when Atticus finds out what he killed the children's attacker he didn’t know what to do. Scout says, “Well it’d be sort of of like shooting a mockingbird”(276). Scout was replying to the ideas of not telling the town what Mr.Radley had done. When Scout says this it shows that she understands the depth behind this issue and the fact that she understood shows that this childhood blindness and innocence she had once had was now gone in a

scout and Jem Finch are growing up in the tired old Alabama town of Maycomb. Their father, Atticus, is the local lawyer and as a single parent tries to raise his children with honor and respect to their individualism. With the Depression on times are hard,

When the Flinch children moved into Maycomb bad rumors were spread about the Radley house, and soon the children were terrified of this “ghostly” neighbor. Little to their knowledge Boo Radley was not a scary mean person like they thought. Boo taught both Jem and Scout that you should not judge people based on what rumors say. For example, in the beginning of the novel Scout and Jem find a knothole in a tree, but when they kept going to the tree there was always something new, like someone had been putting presents for them in their. “I were trotting in our orbit one mild October afternoon when our knot-hole stopped us again. Something white was inside this time.” (page 79). Even though Boo knew that the kids were scared of him and that they believed the rumors he still put effort into making their day and giving them something. Another example was at the very end of the novel when Boo Radley saved Jem and Scouts life. At this moment Scout had a whole new respect for Boo because he wasn't what everyone said. He was better than that. “ A man was passing under it. The man was walking with the staccato steps of someone carrying a load too heavy for him. He was going around the corner. He was carrying jem. Jem’s arm was dangling crazily in front of him.”(page 352). That was Boo that was carrying Jem back to the Flinch house. Boo Radley saved their lives and Scout will never forget him and learned a valuable lesson

Lastly, Boo wants to secretly give Jem, Scout, and Dill some signs to show them that he is not afraid to communicate with them. He wants to show Scout, Jem and Dill that he is interested in learning more about them and the entire world. By doing this, Boo matures into a person who will begin to communicate and interact with the world.

In addition to his curiosity of the children, Boo also demonstrates acts of kindness and concern towards Jem and Scout. This is evident through two scenarios that occur; one involving Jem and the other involving Scout. When Jem leaves the Radley property after retrieving his pants that were stuck the fence, he realizes that the pants were mended and folded, as if someone was waiting upon his arrival. “When I went back, they were folded across the fence… like they were expecting me [...] like somebody could tell what I was gonna do. Can’t anybody tell what I’m gonna do lest they know me, can they, Scout?” (78). Jem’s realization of the situation signifies that Boo Radley does in fact pay attention to the children and wanted to do something nice for them. By mending Jem’s pants and folding them neatly for him, Boo had shown a kindness that they had not seen before. Boo had also shown his concern for the children on the night of the fire, when Miss Maudie's house was erupt in flames. The children were waiting outside for their father, and Boo realized that they must have been cold, so he went and put a blanket around Scout. Scout had not noticed this until she was back at home, when Jem suggested that Boo had put the blanket around her. “‘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’” (96).