he shouldn't be hearing because he andScout are the only two crossing the schoolyard. Each time he thinks he hears footsteps, he very judiciously asks Scout to stop walking and be quiet so he can listen to their surroundings. At one point, the children think they are being followed by Cecil Jacobs and that he is trying to scare them a second time that night. When they become convinced Cecil is not somewhere in the distance behind them, Jem further shows bravery by judiciously asking Scout if she can take off her ham costume since it can be seen in the dark. Without the costume, the children will be completely invisible in the dark. Scout feels she is unable, though, so they proceed toward home.

Once the children hear whoever is following them start to run after them, Jem shows more bravery by judiciously screaming, "Run, Scout! Run! Run," desperate to get himself and his sister safely home. He further shows bravery by trying to fend off their attacker and trying to pull Scout home with him. Scout describes Jem's attempt to bravely defend himself and his sister in the following narration:

From somewhere near by came scuffling, kicking sounds, sounds of shoes and flesh scraping dirt and roots. Someone rolled against me and I felt Jem. He was up like lightning and pulling me with him but, though my head and shoulders were free, I was so entangled we didn't get very far (Chapter 28).

Unlike brave Jem, someone frozen in terror would not have been able to try to fight off the attacker and escape to safety.

Jem's courage is first challenged by Dill Harris regarding the Radley house:

"'You're scared,' Dill said, the first day. 'Ain't scared, just respectful,' Jem said. The next day Dill said, 'You're too scared even to put your big toe in the front yard'"(13).

Little did Jem know that he was going to be challenged to do more than just put his toe in the yard. Eventually Dill eggs him on enough that the following happened:

"Jem threw open the gate and sped to the side of the house, slapped it with his palm and ran back past us, not waiting to see if his foray was successful" (15).

The next summer after this first trial of manhood, the kids decide to roll Scout in a tire for fun. They misjudge their aim and she rolls right up to the front porch of the Radley house. Jem screams at Scout to bring back the tire, but she runs out of there without it. Dill reminds Jem that he had touched the house the previous summer, so it shouldn't be hard for him a year later.

"Jem looked at me furiously, could not decline, ran down the sidewalk, treaded water at the gate, then dashed in and retrieved the tire. 'See there?' Jem was scowling triumphantly. 'Nothin' to it'"(38).

Another frightful situation that Jem must use courage to endure is Mrs. Dubose. She is an old woman who is rumored to have a SCA pistol with her at all times--but that's not the half of it. She yells at the children as they pass her home and even calls Atticus some very bad names. Jem flips out and beats up her roses with Scout's baton. The consequence is he has to go over and read to the old woman every day until she says stop. Jem bravely goes over on the first day with Scout.

"'So you brought that dirty little sister of yours, did you?' was her greeting.

Jem said quietly, 'My sister ain't dirty and I ain't scared of you,' although I noticed his knees shaking"(106).

That was certainly a brave thing to say; and luckily, Mrs. Dubose doesn't scold him for it.

Jem's courage is ultimately tested far above and beyond running up to touch a person's house, or dealing with a grumpy old woman, when he stands up for his father in front of a lynch mob. Atticus tells Jem to go home two or three times and Jem doesn't move an inch, as follows:

"Jem shook his head. As Atticus's fists went to his hips, so did Jem's, and as they faced each other I could see little resemblance between them. . . Mutual defiance made them alike.

'Son, I said go home.'

Jem shook his head" (152).

Jem faces more intense situations as the story moves forward. First Jem faces the Radley house, then Mrs. Dubose, and then the lynch mob. By the end, Jem faces a few life-threatening situations. As Jem bravely conquers each challenge, he is ready for the next one and his courage stands ready to help him.

Throughout Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus equates being courageous with being a gentleman. By the end of the novel, Jem shows he also understands the connection between bravery and courteous behavior when he tells Scout not to squash a roly-poly bug.

Jem first understands his father's philosophy of associating courage with courteous behavior when he apprehends why Atticus kept his sharpshooting skills a secret. As Miss Maudie explains, Atticus gave up shooting because he realized his expert marksmanship placed him at an "unfair advantage over most living things" (Ch. 10). Yet Scout, being young, still has difficulty understanding why Atticus isn't proud of his sharpshooting skills and why he hesitates to kill living things. Jem, on the other hand, understands that both Atticus's refusal to boast about his skill and hesitancy to kill is because, as Jem exclaims, "Atticus is a gentleman, just like me!" (Ch. 10). In other words, Atticus neither kills nor boasts about his ability to kill because he believes in being gentlemanly, or courteous, towards all living things. Since most of society doesn't hold the same views about killing and boasting, it takes a great deal of courage to always respect life and behave courteously.

Later, Atticus further demonstrates courage by addressing Mrs. Dubose in a gentlemanly manner, despite her own ill manners. Even his ability to see Mrs. Dubose's value as a courageous person herself demonstrates his own ability to act with courage. It takes a great deal of courage to always be respectful and find the value in others, especially when the rest of society is disinclined to be respectful and value others. By the end of the novel, we see that Jem has taken these lessons of demonstrating courage through respecting and valuing others to heart.

In Chapter 25, soon after Tom Robinson is shot to death by prison guards, Jem demonstrates his lessons of courage by telling Scout, just as she is about to squash a roly-poly bug after playing with it, "Don't do that, Scout. Set him out on the back steps," and by further explaining, "... they don't bother you." Jem's protection of the roly-poly directly reflects his father's lesson concerning it being sinful to kill innocent things and his lesson concerning respecting and valuing others. Hence, the moment Jem commands Scout not to kill the bug is the moment he says something that most demonstrates the lessons of courage he has learned throughout the book.

In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch is a courageous figure in many respects. For example, he defends Tom Robinson at the cost of his reputation. As a father, Atticus also shows courage in a variety of ways.

The first act of courage extends throughout the entire novel. Atticus is a widower trying to raise his children by himself. Though Calpurnia cooks meals for the family and cleans the house, Atticus devotes himself to properly raising his children, rather than finding a new wife to do it for him. No matter the difficultly or long hours associated with his job as a lawyer, he takes time to listen to Scout and Jem’s troubles. For example, when Scout is adamant about never going to school again after a terrible first day, Atticus treats her opinions with respect. In this way he guides Scout to make better decisions for herself.

Another act of courageous parenting exhibited by Atticus is that though he is protective of Jem and Scout, he does not try to hide the world from them. For example, after Ms. Dubose’s death, Atticus tells Jem that the reason he made Jem read to her each day for a month was to help Ms. Dubose withdraw from her morphine addiction. By revealing this information to Jem, Atticus teaches his son some hard truths about life.

The young narrator of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is Jean Louise ("Scout") Finch; her older brother is Jem Finch. They are the daughter and son of Atticus Finch, and they live in Maycomb, Georgia. 

We meet Jem in the opening lines of the novel, where we learn his age at the time (thirteen) from Scout who is looking back at the events recorded in the book. During the year Jem was thirteen, his arm got broken at the elbow and, like many teenage boys would have been, he was worried that he would never be able to play football again; however, he soon recovered.

His left arm was somewhat shorter than his right; when he stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right angles to his body, his thumb parallel to his thigh. He couldn’t have cared less, so long as he could pass and punt.

Throughout the novel, Jem is Scout's partner in crime, her bossy big brother, and her companion.