Chapter 24-25: What is the significance of the "roly-poly"? What does this incident tell you about Scout and Jem? (Jonathan Kim)

The significance of the “roly-poly” incident is that Jem is starting to grow up emotionally and physically while Scout still needs a lot to learn. When Jem sees that Scout is about to crush the roly-poly, he tells her to stop which annoys Scout. Jem realizes that there is no point in killing the insect, and sees that it is just plain cruel. When Scout asks why she could not kill the roly-poly, Jem says, “Because they don’t bother you” (Lee 320). He believes it is not fair to hurt something as little as an insect if it did not do anything wrong, which shows that Jem is growing up as a more caring and understanding person. Scout does not like the fact that Jem is growing up and wants him to get through the process of puberty of what every teenage boy goes through as quickly as possible. After Scout sets the insect on the back steps, she thinks to herself, “It was probably a part of the stage he was going through, and I wished he would hurry up and get through it”(Lee 320). Scout does not understand what Jem is going through, which clearly shows that she still has to grow up as well. Jem also tells Scout not to kill the insect because of what happened in the Tom Robinson case. After the case, Jem was overwhelmed emotionally when the jury said Tom Robinson was guilty because of how unfair the case was. Jem does not want other people getting hurt, even the insect Scout was about to kill. Although Jem is maturing to adulthood, Scout still needs a lot to learn and still needs to grow up. Scout is still a child where she does not understand the cruelty of killing things for fun. Scout thinks Jem is crazy and thinks that Jem is acting like a girl when Jem is only showing kindness to other living creatures and people.