To Kill A Mockingbird--Growing and Learning

Learning and developing is a part that every child is destined to go through, and the way you learn determines your success as an adult later on in life. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Jem, Scout, and Dill are main characters that are slowly developing and stepping into adulthood. Throughout the novel, they’ve learned about the bitterness of mankind and the cruelty of the real world as they go through events that have led them to answers and taught them many lessons.

While Harper Lee addressed many events that showed the learning and developing of the children, the young characters each had an occurrence that affected them most. Jem was maturing quicker than the other two youths and was beginning to see clearly under Atticus’s guiding light. On the other hand, Scout was starting to behave more like a young lady, under the influence of Aunt Alexandra. Dill, the most mischievous of them all, had seen the injustice of racism as he witnesses various scenes.

First of all, the death of Mrs. Dubose impacted the children, especially Jem. It was the first event that made Jem realize the true bravery does not only come from men with guns and swords, but the ones that have the heart and courage to do what’s right. “Overnight, it seemed, Jem had acquired an alien set of values and was trying to impose them on me.” (131). The change in Jem has been instant, and impacting; as a reader, it was astonishing to have known that Jem has changed so much after one day. Even Scout—Jem’s smaller sister—has noticed the changes in Jem; her preoccupations and thoughts also show how Harper Lee tries to express Scout’s feelings as an innocent girl who hasn’t got the slightest clue of what her brother has in mind that has changed him in such a drastic manner.

            Compared to Jem, Scout is more of an innocent character that represents purity inside children and the innocence that adults have long forgotten. In some ways, Scout was the one mostly influenced in this novel, as she witnessed and went through many events that have changed her as a person; we were able to read her thoughts and understand the story in her point of view. Of course, being the youngest in the household, she wasn’t involved in adult conversations—yet she has matured as much as Jem and Dill, going through many problems that her family faced and learning from it, especially when she found her aunt distressed by the fact that her father may be in danger.

“After all, if Aunty could be a lady at a time like this, so could I.” (271). When Aunt Alexandra discovered that Tom Robinson was dead, she was horrified because although she wasn’t particularly fond of blacks, she was deeply concerned about Atticus’s circumstances and his career. Despite of the situation they’re in, she put up her straight face and met up with the other ladies from Maycomb without a hint of sadness or shock. Scout clearly has matured a lot, being able to say that last sentence in the end of the chapter and having the will to do it.

Dill has been an unpredictable character, from the beginning to end. From the beginning, when Dill plotted to make Boo Radley come out of the house, it was already easy to anticipate that he isn’t a typical obedient country boy. At first, he only seemed capable of thinking up pranks and ideas to play practical jokes on someone else, but near the end of the novel, he expresses his honest ideas.

““I don’t care one speck. It ain’t right, somehow it ain’t right to do ‘em that way. Hasn’t got anybody got any business talking like that—it makes me sick.””(226) It is extremely surprising to have heard such words coming out of Dill’s mouth. The typical Maycomb folks would not admit that it isn’t right to treat blacks unequally although they know that it’s not the right thing to do. Children might have thought that way, being pure as they are, but Dill has grown to have those thoughts, opposed to at the beginning, when he was only interested in jokes and pranks.

In spite of all, Harper Lee shows the kids learning and developing by writing out the events that they face, each earning a lesson on their own. Thus, the children learned to do what’s right and what isn’t—not only by lectures but also by real life experiences. Harper Lee is trying to send a message to the reader; that although many children don’t have to go through tough times whilst some others have to face them in a daily basis, in one point, they will have to face some kind of obstacle, and only in experience and development will they be able to make the right choices for themselves and their loved ones.

Strangeness Surrounding Maycomb County

This autumn was not like any other; Atticus said that the weather hadn't been this bizarre since 1885. I kept rubbing my numb fingers together in the cold, thinking about the sweltering heat that usually surrounds Maycomb County.

        Mrs. Radley passed away that autumn—better said, that winter. It hadn’t resulted as a calamity to most of the people in Maycomb; the Radley family was never completely assimilated in the community—they were considered as a reclusive bunch.

        Jem and I considered all the possibilities that might have taken place—that may have caused Mrs. Radley’s death. There was dissension over the topic, but we both agreed that Boo Radley was a major suspect. We weren’t usually meticulous about anything, but we filled up the unknown with striking details: the shackles, the bloody scene, the knives and all. We lionized Boo Radley.

        When we interrogated Atticus, he didn’t provide much information; Jem told me that it would make it worse if we pushed him, so we kept silent after hearing his lackadaisical answer.

        The peculiar snowflakes out the window made Jem and I eager to step outside just to get the feeling of it. When we rushed out the door, we realized that the thin layer of snow wouldn’t be enough for the snowman we wanted to build. It was imminent that it wouldn’t snow for long, so when I reached out my tongue to taste a flake—or when I walked in circles, sinking my feet into the ground—Jem told me that it would be better not to waste snow.

        We went to Miss Maudie’s to ask for snow, and we met Mr. Avery on our way. He said that it was the conspiring chaos that the children made, that changed the seasons. After I apprehended what he was trying to say, I wondered if our government was in a state of anarchy—I wondered why people like Mr. Avery were not arrested and arraigned for saying such remarks to children—but of course, that was just my imagination running wild.

        Miss Maudie agreed to us taking her snow—in fact, she didn’t want it inside her yard. Jem had a brilliant idea—although I didn’t think it was much of an idea at first—he scooped up mud and made the snowman and later he plastered the snow on top. The art piece looked familiar—the big stomach, the angry eyes, and the stick of stove wood that completed the picture. I thought that this was a worse punishment for Mr. Avery than to be brought before a court.

        Atticus liked the idea of making the snowman out of mud, but he got a little uneasy when he realized that we were trying to portrait Mr. Avery; he told us to modify the snowman and disguise it so that it wouldn’t offend Mr. Avery. Jem grabbed Miss Maudie’s hat and put it on the snowman’s head and a couple of hedge clippers on his arm. Although Miss Maudie told Atticus that our snowman resulted to be a morphodite, she grinned when she saw our creation; Atticus said that she was impressed by it.

        The following night was dreary, and the temperature crawled down to sixteen degrees. After several hours have elapsed, Atticus woke me up, and his voice told me that something was wrong. The fire was devouring Miss Maudie’s house when we got there. Men were sprinting in and out of the house, trying to save the little furniture that weren’t swallowed by the fire.

        Atticus was accompanying Miss Maudie when Jem and I were trying to stay on a safe distance from the fire. My attention was on the fire, and I did not notice when someone put a blanket around me. I was confused when Atticus asked me where I got the blanket from; it scared me even more, when he conjectured that Boo Radley had stood behind me, and put a blanket around my shoulders. That was my first encounter with Boo Radley.