Analyzing Jem's Maturity in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird

Maturation is a long, tedious process, as exciting as it is challenging. Each stage of life poses its own set of unique challenges: the toddler taking his first clumsy steps, slowly progressing towards the capability to walk; the first grader reciting the alphabet with eagerness and pride; the high school student writing, editing, and re-editing countless essays. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, the character that matures and changes the most of all is Jeremy Finch – or Jem, as he is called for most of the novel. He goes from a juvenile boy to an established young man throughout the course of the novel.
By the end of To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem has significantly grown from the childish, playful boy that he was in earlier chapters, to a calmer, more composed and responsible figure, much like his father, Atticus. At the beginning of the novel, Jem has an innocent concept of courage. His idea of bravery is accepting dares imposed upon him. According to his sister Scout, “in all his life, Jem had never declined a dare” (Lee, 16). This exhibits his foolishness rather than his valor, because Jem accepts challenges blindly, and he does not think of the consequences or about his safety when performing a dare. He is also a bit ignorant, thinking he is better than Scout and Dill because he is older than them, and constantly tries to prove it. This complex leads him to commit ridiculous gestures of 'bravery', such as touching the front gates of the Radley house, as he "wanted Dill to know once and for all that he wasn't scared of anything" (Lee, 17). This form of courage is not respected by the adults in Maycomb, which is evident from Atticus’s response when he hears that the children were causing trouble in the Radley's place – he tells Jem to leave the Radley family alone.
It is clear that Jem has a vivid imagination, for he has ridiculous perceptions of Boo Radley. According to him, Boo is supposedly "six-and-a-half feet tall", “he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch", and his hands are always "bloodstained" (Lee, 16). In actuality, Boo is contrasts Jem’s descriptions of him, and he is actually a kind-hearted person. This shows his immaturity because even though he knows that it is highly unlikely that these facts are true, he continues to be irrational towards accepting Boo because of the prejudices against him. Jem also portrays gender stereotypes towards his sister, commonly referring to her as a "girl" (Lee, in a derogatory way. He uses this to indirectly get Scout to do what he wants her to, because it makes Scout want to prove him wrong, and she does so by doing whatever Jem asks her to.

However, upon maturity, Jem possessed a different kind of courage � moral courage, which is to do what is right even if it is not popular, or if it might anger those around him. An example is when he and Scout found Dill emerging from underneath Scout's bed in the middle of the night, and his first reaction was to "let your mother know where you are". This is very adult-like as it shows that Jem has finally been able to rationalize and analyse the situation, and to put himself in the shoes of Dill's parents should they be worried. Eventually, he "broke the remaining code of childhood", which shows that even though it was not in favour of Scout and Dill, he managed to muster his moral courage, and relate this problem to Atticus himself. Also, there are many instances where Jem tries to inculcate certain values or perspectives to Scout, even though Scout claims it as "maddening superiority". This shows that even though his sister will feel angry when Jem tries to "boss" her around, he still shares his viewpoints with her and sometimes order her to do things.

However, all these changed when he started maturing. He had become more conscientious towards other people's feelings. An example was when he lost all prejudices against Boo Radley when he started leaving behind small gifts to the children in the knot-hole, and Jem, with good intentions to thank Boo Radley, decided to "give Boo Radley a note" to thank him. Similarly, when Nathan Radley sealed up the knot-hole with cement, Jem's "face was dirty at the right places" that night, showing that he had cried. His maturity kicks in because now, he is able to sympathise with Boo Radley, since all forms of communications with Boo Radley are now gone. In addition, during a conversation with Atticus, Jem admitted that Boo Radley "ain't ever harmed us, he ain't ever hurt us", showing the downturn of Jem's prejudices against Boo Radley. Furthermore, he now treats his sister with respect, using part of his twelfth birthday pocket money to buy Scout a "twirling baton", knowing well that she had always wanted one. Also, his conscientiousness is shown towards Atticus, when he told Scout to not bother Atticus with disciplinary issues because the "Tom Robinson case that's worryin' him to death". In addition, he also decided that he and Scout ought to "allow Atticus thirty minutes to himself after supper". These show that Jem was able to put himself in the shoes of Atticus and understands that Atticus needs the time and space to ponder about the troubling Tom Robinson case he has in his hands.

Finally, Jem used to have negative perceptions of Atticus' "inadequacies". He saw Atticus as an old hag, being "much older than the parents of out school contemporaries", He also mentioned that Atticus was "nearly blind in his left eye", but in actual fact, Atticus was known as the "deadest shot in Maycomb". He also found Atticus to be boring as a father, since he "did not do the things out schoolmate's fathers did" and when there was a football collaboration in school, "everybody's father was playing, it seemed, except Atticus", which made Jem frustrated because he was not able to join them due to Atticus being a 'cold blanket'.

However, when he enters adolescence, instead of stressing on the "inadequacies" of Atticus, Jem has ironically begun to become like Atticus, in a positive way. He was ultimately a reflection of Atticus. He "didn't want to do anything but read", just like how Atticus always reads when he gets back from work, and he aspires to be a "gentleman", just like Atticus. He also inherited the sarcastic nature of Atticus, evident in his conversation with Aunt Alexandra, when he said that the "Finches had an incestuous streak" and that the "Ewells" makes "fine folks", in rebuttal to Aunt Alexandra's rant on the different types of streaks there is in Maycomb. His likeness to Atticus was also depicted in the confrontation of the lynch mob to take down Tom Robinson, when "Atticus' hands when to his hips, so did Jem's", and Scout noticed the "resemblance between them" and that "mutual defiance made them both alike". This example proves the maturity of Jem � from the journey to his childish self, to the principled Atticus.