To Kill a Mockingbird: Coming of Age Theme
Martha Maldonado
Period 5
Coming of Age Theme Essay
Coming of age comes with an inevitable end of childhood innocence, which graduation into maturity cannot truly take place. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Jem, a ten-year-old boy, and Scout, a six-year-old girl, two children who live in the southern town Maycomb, Alabama, are shown in their adventures that help them mature. During the years of the Great Depression - the years when this novel is set - racism had been an attitude many southerners followed. Jem and Scout are shown going through a tremendous amount of growing up in this novel - not only physically, but also emotionally, mentally, and morally. The ...
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in which they live through.
When Dill Harris, a little boy only a year older than Scout, comes to Maycomb, Jem, Scout and Dill indulge in play together, enacting scenes from Tarzan, Tom Swift and such, until "by the end of August, [their] repertoire [is] vapid from countless reproductions" (Lee 8). It is then when they come up with the idea of trying to get Boo Radley. In the children's innocent imaginations, Boo is made out to be a monster. Their innocent imaginations give away their immaturity. Innocent and naive, children tend to be quick to contemplate upon things they are not sure about, while also being quick to accept new ideas and new people; the Finch children accept Dill as a friend almost as soon as they meet him. When Scout goes to school for the first time, she is introduced to a different set of rules from what she is used to as of yet. Jem makes it clear to Scout "that during school hours, [she is] not to bother him, [she is] not to approach him with requests ...
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of Maycomb. When Scout hears Atticus being called a "nigger-lover" by her cousin Francis, she loses control and charges into a fight with Francis. Scout, feeling guilty that she had failed Atticus after he told her not to let others bother her about defending a Negro, asks her Uncle Jack not to tell Atticus her side of the story, although Uncle Jack feels that it would justify her actions to a degree. Scout faces a racially prejudiced attitude for one of the first times in this novel, and hotheadedly rushes into a fight. As Scout and Jem believe that Atticus has no talents, as "Atticus [is] feeble" (Lee 89), they have trouble taking pride in their father. When they see Atticus ...
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"To Kill a Mockingbird: Coming of Age Theme." Essayworld.com. March 21, 2012. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/To-Kill-Mockingbird-Coming-Age-Theme/100492.
"To Kill a Mockingbird: Coming of Age Theme." Essayworld.com. March 21, 2012. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/To-Kill-Mockingbird-Coming-Age-Theme/100492.
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