Essay/Term paper: To kill a mockingbird 7

Essay, term paper, research paper:  To Kill a Mockingbird

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
CHARACTER ANALYSIS

Marcus Alexander English 9
Due: 6/3/96 Character Analysis

Throughout life people go through changes. These changes can be brought on by events in a person"s life, the need to adapt, adolescence, as well as other things. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, many characters go through changes including Jem. He changes in his attitude, his beliefs, and his interests.
Throughout the beginning of the book Jem plays and is on the same thought pattern with his younger sister, Scout. They play games with their friend Dill and get along well. But later in the book Jem begins to change. All the sudden he doesn"t want to play with Scout anymore and is uninterested in the games they used to play. This is, in my opinion, because he is going through puberty and his attitude towards Scout and himself changes. He begins to think of Scout as a little kid and he feels he should be doing older, more mature things.
Jem"s beliefs change profoundly too. He used to believe in the court system, something he had read about and was taught about by his father, Atticus. But after the court convicts Tom Robinson of rape when Atticus had clearly proven that Tom could not have done it Jem sees his first real glance of corruption in the world. It upsets him as well as making him see and believe in evils in the world, such as racism. His beliefs in why Boo Radley stayed in the house all the time changed too. When he was young he thought Boo was just crazy and that"s why he stayed in the house. But he comes to believe that Boo stays in the house because he doesn"t want to come out, because he doesn"t like the world outside.
His interests change too. When he was young his main focus was Boo Radley. He worked all summer, every summer, to try to get Boo to come out. But as he gets older he becomes less and less interested in Boo and more interested in law and in football. His interest in law branches off from his father"s wish for him to become a lawyer, and from his interest in his father"s cases. He becomes involved in football because that"s all he really does after he stops playing with Scout and because he has a natural knack for it.
Jem changed in many ways, some I have named, and others unaccounted for. These changes came from experiences and from adolescence. Everyone changes in one way or another along the road of life. Its an unavoidable part of life, and is as natural as life itself.