Maturity In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee
In every human being’s life, they experience maturity moving from child to adult and how one’s personality may change over time. Their opinion may change and the way that they see the world. They can see the heartache and pain amongst others and the gratitude that they should show by seeing all of these people who live a world full of pain. In the coming of age book, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, shows the continuous topic of maturity from the children of Maycomb County. The book was published in the 1960’s, although it takes place in the segregated time of the 1930s. Maturity flows through the children as the book progresses but through the grown adults as well. The three main children of the story are Scout, Jem and Dill and how over the years they battle the racial standards of Maycomb. At the beginning of the story, Scout’s way of handling situations was to fight people. As the story develops, she evolves into a respectable woman. Jem also demonstrates maturity as he can see what is happening in his neighbourhood isn’t right. He further shows maturity when he observes the words that people are calling his father and realizes that their language is false. Finally, Dill, Jem and Scout’s friend that visits every summer. One summer whilst Tom Robinson’s trial was in motion, Dill was exposed to the extreme racism that occurs. As the story progresses the author vocalizes the change in all of the children’s personalities and how their opinions of the world's progress.
At the beginning of the story, Scout was fighting everyone who she deemed disrespectful or mean to her in general. Scout isn’t like normal girls in Maycomb. All of the other girls wear dresses and get dolled up. However, when Scout had to put on a dress for school she dreads every second of it. Scout is known as a tomboy by not only the way that she dresses, but also the way that she acts. For a girl to fight was unheard of but for a boy to fight was normal. At the beginning of the first grade, Scout had already felt that she and her teacher, Miss Caroline, had not gotten off to the best start. Scout had already learned to read from her father, Atticus, and Miss Caroline said that wasn’t appropriate. Miss Caroline had noticed that a boy in the class had no lunch. When Miss Caroline offered to pay for his lunch with a quarter, she insisted that “You can pay me back tomorrow”. Scout stood up and said, “Miss Caroline, he’s a Cunningham”. The Cunninghams are extremely poor and couldn’t pay her back the debt that he owed. Miss Caroline was sick of Scout calling out to the class so Scout’s consequence is to sit in the corner. Scout starts to fight Walter Cunningham during recess because he made her and Miss Caroline start off rocky. Furthermore, in the novel, Scout finds herself in another fight. This fight took place on the Finch Landing. All of the Finch’s gathered for a dinner. This gathering happened after Atticus was offered the spot to defend Tom Robinson. The word had gotten out about this whole ordeal and Scout’s cousin, Francis, was not happy about it. Francis proceeded to call him hurtful names and Scout being herself wanted to protect Atticus’s reputation at all costs. He called out again and she got an urge, Scout split her “knuckle to the bone on his front teeth”. Scout punches Francis because he had called her father names and she was worried that people would think poorly about Atticus if Francis kept on bringing it up. One can see that Scout is evolving through the novel and has learned that fighting people does not solve her problem in any way and there are different ways to solve her problems. She also learned the consequences of her actions.
Additionally, through the story, Scout’s brother, Jem, was experiencing maturity the most out of all of the children. In the story, Jem was getting to the age that he acted differently. Every day he is growing and Scout doesn’t know how he would act this day. As Jem changes, he starts to understand people, his neighbourhood, and the racism that takes place in his very home. Boo Radley, the fear of most children of Maycomb stays in his house because of the accusations of stabbing his father. Before Scout, Jem realizes just who Boo Radley is. He notices that he isn’t some monster that everyone fears, he’s simply a man. When Boo starts leaving the mysterious gifts in the knothole, Jem realizes that it was Boo, “‘I swear to God he ain’t ever harmed us, he coulda cut my throat from ear to ear that night but he tried to mend my pants instead. . . he ain’t ever hurt us’”. At this age, Jem realizes that Boo may not be who everyone makes him out to be and that he may be a nice man. Moreover, Jem realizes the amount of racism from whites to blacks in his neighbourhood. Jem sees this exceptionally in the court case between Tom Robinson and the Ewells. Jem never used to understand the racism, like the other children, but as he grew older he recognized the amount of inequality in his town. Jem dedicates all of his energy into the trial and refused to believe that his father and Tom Robinson wouldn’t win. Whilst the children were watching the trial proceed, Scout noticed, “Jem’s hand, which was resting on the balcony rail, tightened around it. He drew his breath suddenly”. Scout saw that the trial angered Jem so deeply and how he attempted to relieve his stress by wrapping his hand around the railing. Jem gains knowledge of his surroundings through the story and how he wants to deal with them in the future.
Finally, Dill, the friend of Jem and Scout that comes to hang out in Maycomb every summer. Although readers don’t see him as much as the others, every time he does make an appearance it is obvious that he has changed in some way. When Dill first appears he rarely shows affection and sympathy for others. When Scout and Jem explain the tales of Boo Radley, Dill doesn’t hesitate to believe them. He automatically thinks negativly about him without even knowing the story behind it. As Dill engages with Scout about Boo she notices that, “the Radley Place fascinated Dill”. With little detail on the subject, Dill jumped to conclusions on the mysterious man and believed that he was evil and guilty of the unthinkable. Secondly, like Jem, Dill notices the inequality in Maycomb. Dill doesn’t even live in Maycomb but he still picks up on the racism there. Surely the inequality in Meridian (his home town) was not nearly as bad. During the trial, he witnesses all of the racism that he wasn’t adapted to, and it made him sick. “‘I know all that, Scout. It was the way that he said it made me sick, plain sick’”. The hurtful things that were being said to Tom Robinson made Dill feel ill and have to leave the courtroom because of his hysterical crying. At the start of the novel, Dill didn’t care for others but then he quickly recognized the racism and felt remorse for Tom Robinson because of it.
As the story progresses the author vocalizes the change in all of the children’s personalities and how their opinions of the world's progress. In To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, it visibly shows the change between the three main children in the story, Scout, Jem, and Dill. Scout matures by seeing the eye of others. At the start, she always fought people because it made her feel like she was the boss of everyone. She felt that fighting would make whatever was causing her stress to disappear. Jem is Scout’s brother, who reveals major maturity in the story. He views the world and the people in a different way. He starts to understand more and realize what he truly believes in. Finally, Dill experienced maturity by how be became a more sympathetic person as the story progresses.
