Growing Up: Jem Character Analysis

Author's Note: This is my short essay on the character Jem in To Kill a Mockingbird and how he changes throughout the book. I feel his character is easy to have many relations to due to the fact we all have to grow up at some point.

Remember that teddy bear you hugged every day? How about those dolls sitting in the back of your closet? Remember that shirt you used to wear all the time when you were little? How tiny it must be now? We all have to grow up somehow sooner or later in our lives. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird lives a boy names Jem, who definitely changes throughout the book. At the ages of 10 through 13, a time in which children tend to begin to mature, Jem is put into different scenarios and exposed to the outside world. Through the eyes of his sister, Scout, you can definitely see how Jem matures and changes throughout the book.

Jem changes a lot through the course of the novel To Kill a Mocking Bird in this book. His ideas and experiences change his viewpoint on the word though. To begin,  Jem found that an ideal picture of bravery was simply touching the side of Boo Radley’s house. He is more immature and more unaware. “In all his life, Jem never declined a dare” (13). However, as he begins to grow up he learns more about the key terms of bravery witnessing his father shooting a mad dog, and battling a case for a black man. He witnesses first hand Mrs. Dubose’s struggles with drug addiction, Scout’s confrontation with the mob at the jail and so on. Each tapped into the real world, a part of the world in which he didn’t really see before.

As he keeps progressing throughout the book, he begins to make more of the right, yet more difficult choices. For example, when Dill sneaks into Scout’s bedroom running from home, all Jem says is “You oughta let your mother know where you are”(141). Following this is an even more risky decision, involving Atticus. You can see that his coping skills are still developing in the courthouse. When Scout overhears Miss Gates’ racist remarks, she tells Jem. At this point, Jem snaps in reply “I never wanta hear about that courthouse again, ever, ever, you hear me?” (247). Showing evidence of change once again, Jem has been exposed to experiences he’s not really used to.

Jem grows from being the trouble making young boy who dragged Scout along with him throughout his little adventures, to a more mature young man who tries to help guide Scout throughout her life, helping her understand the more complex situations that surround her.