To Kill A Mockingbird Jem Finch Mature

In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem Finch has to deal with being the eldest child and the first one to grow up and be mature. This situation puts him in a strange position as he is seen acting as strange and betraying by the people around him, especially his younger sibling Scout and his friend Dill. In chapter fourteen, this struggle is brought to surface after Dill is found under Scout’s bed because he ran away from his uninterested parents. In this scene, Jem has to stand up and start acting more mature even though it’ll sting, which Harper Lee reveals by dialogue and through Jem’s character and his actions. Before it all begins, the reader has the knowledge that Dill decided to run away from his home and hide under Scout’s bed. He does this due to the fact he feels unappreciated by his parents and almost somewhat like a burden. When Jem …show more content…
As Atticus comes into the room after being called, while he’s talking to Dill, “Jem was standing in a corner of the room, looking like the traitor he was,” (Lee 141). It is inferred that Jem awkwardly stood in the corner because he “betrayed” his friend by being mature, yet Dill and Scout just don’t understand what growing up is yet. The reader even sees Scout referring to Jem as a “traitor”. She thinks this because, through her eyes, Jem is still a carefree, daring child. Yet, Jem isn't a young boy anymore, he's becoming more responsible along with being a teenager. In one sentence of the passage, Lee uses his action to display Jem’s guilt. Before Jem called his father, “Dill’s eyes flickered at Jem, and Jem looked at the floor” (Lee 141). Jem does not want to look into Dill’s eyes knowing a feeling a guilt would devour him if he were to do so. All of this portrays Jem as a new person and how the people who’ve been with him before, are reacting