A Study of The Theme of Sibling Rivalry as Depicted in Harper Lee's Novel to Kill a Mockingbird

“ With that I was gone. ‘You damn morphodite. I’ll kill you!’ He was sitting on a bed, and it was easy to grab his front hair and land one on his mouth. He slapped me and I tried another left, but a punch in the stomach sent me sprawling on the floor. It nearly knocked the breath out of me, but it didn’t matter because I knew he was fighting, he was fighting me back. We were still equals.

‘Ain’t so high and mighty now, are you!’ I screamed, sailing in again… We were still struggling when Atticus separated us.” (Chapter 12, Page 184)

In this passage from To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee shows Scout and Jem fighting. She shows that they don’t only fight verbally, as shown when Jem told Scout “You damn morphodite”, but they do fight physically as well. It shows on the same page that Scout showed how she finds Jem’s “Superiority” was really annoying her. She just got so irritated on how Jem was trying so hard to act so grown up. Right before they started fighting, Jem was threatening to “Spank” her if she angers Aunt Alexandra. This caused her to get maddened by his superior attitude from how bossy he acts. From here, she immediately loses it and turned it into a physical fight. During the fight, Scout got hurt very bad by Jem, but she didn't seem to care since he was fighting back .Scout yells “Ain’t so high and mighty now, are you”, indicating how she knew that what he was doing isn’t mature at all and that he is no different from her. After that, Atticus had to stop them from fighting and separated them.

In this passage, I can very well relate to Scout herself. But for me, it wasn’t sibling rivalry, I have had problems with my own cousin who is only ½ a year older than me. Even though he isn’t even that much older then me or better than me in most things, he still acts all “high and mighty”, kind of like Jem. I can say that I kinda am like Scout, since we both seem to have childish like qualities. I, myself, have found myself having fights, such as this with my older cousin for the same reason. Honestly, if I was in Scout’s shoe, I would have probably done the same thing, because sometimes I lose it and start physical fights, mostly when people bother me for absolutely no reason. Sometimes, I usually just try keeping my mouth shut, which Scout seemed to be trying to do right before this passage. But just like Scout, I lose it completely and start fighting, most of the time it’s verbally but it’s mostly physical. And, just like how Jem and Scout were shown in this passage, we had a parent separate us so we could stop fighting. And just like Scout, I usually fight him to only show him that he really is no better than me, which is how I can relate to her in this passage.