What Role Does Jem Play In To Kill A Mockingbird

According to the reading, “Scout, I think I am beginning to understand something. I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all this time… it’s because he wants to stay inside” (Lee 304). The quote shows that Boo really isn’t that mean, senseless monster, but maybe a wise man. Boo staying in his house affects Jem’s thinking of Maycomb and its equality, where Jem understands Boo’s incentives. Jem thinks, maybe Boo believes our society is not right because earlier in the book Jem states, “If there’s just one kind of folks, why can’t they get along with each other? If they’re all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other?” (Lee 304). This shows that Jem is beginning to understand that the belief of whites and blacks being completely different isn’t right. Boo’s wanting to stay inside is caused by the messed up environment around him, and now Jem is starting to understand his reasons too. This quote shows that Boo is smart, and that Jem and Scout have a completely new view of

Every kid in Maycomb county was scared of him, even walking past his house was a scary task for some. Boo is portrayed as the bad guy in the book, but I believe he was the total opposite. One day he randomly decided to stab his father while he was cutting out paper, and he thought nothing of it. In the book, it never really mentions what his motives for doing this were, which can show that Boo was misunderstood. Even though he did not care for his father he still cared for other people. He left several gifts like gum and soap dolls in a tree trunk, which Jem and Scout found and kept for themselves. He also wrapped a blanket around Jem and Scout when Miss Maudie’s house caught on fire. One of the kindest things he did in the book was when he saved his neighbors, Jem and Scout, from being killed by Bob

The book we have been reading in class has three main characters that develop over time. There's Atticus the dad, scout the daughter of Atticus, and jem the oldest sibling whose father is Atticus. The story gives the base for every character's attitude and feelings and as the story goes on.Jem for example, starts off as a 10 year old and by the end he's 13 and in those 3 years you see a great change. He shows that he's smart for his age, long temper, and very caring

Boo Radley is portrayed as a crazy maniac due to the rumors spread about him and a trial he underwent as a teenager.(Scout) "So Jem received most of his information from Miss Stephanie Crawford, a neighborhood scold, who said she knew the whole thing. According to Miss Stephanie, Boo was sitting in the livingroom cutting some items from 'The Maycomb Tribune' to paste in his scrapbook. His father entered the room. As Mr. Radley passed by, Boo drove the scissors into his parent’s leg, pulled them out, wiped them on his pants, and resumed his activities."(pg 11)Scout and Jem look upon him with fear and suspicion from the stories that surround them from the time they were children. She gradually becomes aware that Boo is just lonely and wants

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 like Scout realizes that Boo is not that bad of a person. Jem leaves his ripped pants laying in the Radley yard one night trying to peek into the window and get a glimpse of Boo. He runs back to get them and finds them folded neatly on the fence without a rip in them. Jem later finds out that Boo was taking care of him. “Scout, I think I am beginning to understand something. I think I am beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all this time..it is because he wants to stay inside.”(304) Jem then realizes Boo’s reasoning for not wanting to see the world. Tom Robinson’s trial has an effect on Jem’s ideas if empathy. He never pays attention to the actions of others from his own view, he just listens to what people such as Miss. Stephanie say assuming that it is true. When his father has to stand up for Tom on trial for “raping” Mayella Ewell and does not win, Jem can not believe that a group of men could make a decision based off of lies. He asked Atticus multiple times “How could they do that?” and Atticus simply said “they have done it before and they will do it

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

One reason the readers have come to love Jem Finch is the many personality traits he has shown throughout the book. These personality traits also happen to further themes in the book. He’s innocent, idealistic, and responsible. Jem’s innocence is one of the first traits readers are introduced to. It is shown when Jem spreads and believes rumors about Boo Radley: “Jem hissed. ‘Scout, how’s he gonna know what we’re doin’? Besides, I don’t think he’s still there. He died years ago and they stuffed him up a chimney.’” (Lee 39). In this scene Jem, Dill, and Scout are playing “‘Boo Radley.’” (Lee 38). Jem suggested the plan to the others as foolish game where they play out roles of the Radley household. Jem’s action in doing

Since Scout and Jem could remember, Boo was in his house, never to be seen, no one ever got to know him, and no one asked him how he felt. It was said that he stabbed his parents, and sometimes he would walk around at night looking into peoples windows: “Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch… his hands were bloodstained… 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 16) This description was given by Jem, who had never seen Boo, but planted in the mind of himself and his sister that Boo was a bloodthirsty savage. As the kids grew up, later in the story they eventually understood how Boo felt, they grew out of their naivety, and looked at things through Boo’s eyes.

At the beginning of the book, Jem was extremely immature. He was intent on getting Boo Radley to come out of his house. Jem claimed Boo “. . . dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch . . . there was a long jagged scar that ran along his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time.” (16) Jem created the Boo Radley game, in which him, Dill, and Scout acted out their rumor-filled version of Boo’s life story. Jem also did not question any of Maycomb’s social conventions, and barely even recognized their existence. He had utter faith in Maycomb and did not realize that there was an ugly side to the town he knew and loved. During the trial, Jem said with

At the beginning of the story, Jem and Scout was young , childish and lacked the ability to see things from other's point of view. From the children's point-of-view, their most compelling neighbor is Boo Radley, a man that always stay in his house and none of them has ever seen. During the summer , they find Boo as a chracacter of their amusement. They sneak over to Boo house and get a peek at him. They also acting out an entire Radley family. "Jem parceled out our roles: I was Mrs. Radley, and all I had to do was come out andsweep the porch. Dill was old Mr. Radley: he walked up and down the sidewalk andcoughed when Jem spoke to him. Jem, naturally, was Boo: he went under the frontsteps and shrieked and howled from time to time"(chapter 4). Eventually , Atticus catch them and order

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).

Boo is like a monster to Dill, Jem and Scout throughout the beginning of the novel although once the children see that he leaves them gifts inside a knothole in the tree in between their houses. He is only seen on one occasion in the novel, although he is talked about many times because Scout and Jem take an interest in him once they start to find out who he really is as a person. Boo Radley never really left his house even when he could simply because

The literary novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, explains subjects going on in the 1930s from the perspective of a white little girl in Alabama. In the divided town of Maycomb County, Alabama, contains Jean Louise Finch, her older brother Jem, and their father Atticus. The town became even more divided as Atticus, a lawyer, defending a black man accused of rape. In the coming of age scene where Atticus explains to the jury how Tom Robinson, a black man accused of rape, life is in their hands, which shows the children the differences between knowledge and ignorance.

Jem and Scout saw Boo Radley as a frightening man who was a childish superstition based off of the rumors from the town. As the children grew up the stories about Boo Radley caused them to become more fascinated than frightened by Boo. The Radley house intrigued them to the point where they snuck into the backyard to try to make Boo leave his house but that resulted in the children thinking that every sound they heard was Boo coming for revenge. In the first chapters, Jem describes how they pictured Boo, which 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…”. Logically it is understood just by Jem’s description that the children had no relationship with Boo Radley other than