What Important lessons have Jem and Scout learned by the end of part 1. Are they ready to cope with what lies ahead?In this essay I am going to look at the different lessons that Jem and Scout learn over the first half of the novel, to kill a Mocking Bird. I am going to explore the different ways that they are influenced, and whom the people are that they are influenced by. This will help me to see who is responsible for the character changes that occur in Jem and Scout, as they grow older.In this first paragraph I am going to look at the characters of Jem and Scout at the start of the novel, this will help to give me a clear idea of how the characters think and this comes to change in the chapters ahead. The story is narrated by Scout Finch, who is six at the beginning and nine when the story ends. She is a lively, intelligent girl, who is a “tomboy.” She dislikes school greatly and has a close relationship with her father, Atticus Finch. She is often being told by her father to think with her head rather than her fists, in other words to go against her instinctive reaction. Many attempts are often made at Scout to try and convince her to act more “ladylike” She resists these attempts to make her act more feminine, as she wants to live up to her own expectations of life rather than somebody else’s.The story begins when Jem is ten and finishes when he is thirteen. At first Jem enjoys normal childhood games like playing football, making up games and just playing with his friends in general. He is milder tempered than his sister scout, and is more sensitive to other people. All these factors change in Jem as the story unfolds, which I will look at later.In To Kill a Mocking bird, Harper Lee explores several different types of courage that the reader is able to recognise. The type that Jem and Scout come in to contact with the most is the basic courage require to overcome childish fears, examples of this are...
