To Kill A Mockingbird Coming Of Age Analysis

Childhood, to adulthood, a large step for everyone. It is a stage that everybody must go through and experience. Dill Harris a seven year old boy, Scout Finch a six year old girl, and Jem Finch a 10 year old boy are all young characters in the novel To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee that show a large step of maturing and coming of age through all of their adventures and experiences from the beginning of the novel to the end. These three kids go through experiences that affect them for the rest if their lives and impacts the way look at life. The first character that matures and shows coming of age throughout the novel is Dill Harris. He matures in three different ways. First he learns to stop lying and exaggerating his words and start …show more content…
Scout shows maturity by learning to treat all people politely no matter their family background, race or culture. An example of this is when, Scout complains to Calpurnia about the amount of syrup Walter Cunningham is pouring on his dinner and states “He aint't company, Cal, he's just a Cunningham-” Calpurnia responds to that with “Hush your mouth! Don't matter who they are, anybody sets foot in this house's yo' comp'ny, and don' you let me catch you remarkin' on their ways like you was so high and mighty. Yo' folks might be better'n the Cunningham's but it don't count for nothin' the way your disgracin' 'em-if you can't act fit to eat at the table you can just set here and eat in the kitchen!” (Lee 33) This quote shows that Scout is learning many lessons from Calpurnia about treating all people politely when they enter their house. Especially towards the Cunningham's and Walter. She starts to treat Walter and his family better and stops judging them because of their last name, and because they are a poor family. Scout learns that the Cunningham's are just like all other families. She thinks that because they are poor she believes that they are automatically different then everyone else. But later learns, thanks to Calpurnia that they are just like everyone else and that she should treat them the exact same way she would treat any other family. Also Scout learns to ignore rude comments and act like …show more content…
One of the ways he matures is he learns to protect his sister and do what’s best for her. An example of this is “[…] But when I was rubbing his nose in the dirt Jem came by and told me to stop “You're bigger'n he is” he said.”This quote shows that Jem is standing up for his sister. He sees that Scout is being inappropriate so he comes over to stop her. He is making the right choices and helping out his sister very much. He wants his sister to make better choices so he is trying to help her out more. Jem wants to do what he can do to make Scout make the right choices and do what is best for her. Jem is being a very good brother in the novel and becomes an even better one towards the end of the story. Jem also matures throughout the book because he realizes that people of different races are treated unfairly. An example of how Jem matures through this is, “It was Jem's turn to cry. His face was streaked with tears as we made our way through the cheerful crowd. “It ain't right,” muttered […]” This quote shows that as Jem, Scout, and Dill are attending the court they see that people of different race and colour are treated completely different and much ruder. But Jem is the one that realizes this the most, compared to the other two children. Jem did not understand this when he was younger but now as he attends the court he starts to notice that they are treated completely different. Jem notices