's actions
inof by are almost a male rite of passage for him. For, perceiving his
father in a predicament which it does not appear that he can solve, Jem decides to prove his
mettle as a man and conquer the situation for his father. In the words or Walt Whitman,
"the child becomes the father."
This individual action of Jem's, in
addition to demonstrating his maturation in this bildungsroman, also points
to Harper Lee's motif of the individual thought vs. conventional wisdom. The children ofare
developing as individual's and are able to think outside the "disease of Maycomb's"
conventional wisdom on such things as relgion, race, and social status. For his expression of
individuality, as well as his courage, Atticus, as he ruffles Jem's hair, expresses his pride
and love for his son.
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