What does Scout mean by “It was then that Jem and I first began to part company?”

        Harper Lee is showing something very clear with Scout. As she grows older, she is being put by the author into more of a typical feminine role of that time period, with more caution and less confidence. She notices it, and does not like it very much, and tries to overcome it. Jem and Dill also notice it, and while Dill accepts it, Jem does not, and prefers the old Scout: “Scout, I'm tellin' you for the last time, shut your trap or go home-I declare to the Lord you're getting' more like a girl every day!” As you can see, Harper Lee is writing a bit of a gap here between the genders. How she is doing this is by describing them more as their stereotypes and less with the close friendship they used to have. If this is supposed to be a 'coming of age' novel about Scout, then Harper Lee has to do that, as otherwise they would stay in the kind of relationship that boys and girls shared when they were very young, as Scout was at the beginning of the novel. Harper Lee is also trying to make it seem as though Jem is deliberately putting some distance between them, almost as if she wants the gender gap to widen to make it more obvious.

        Harper Lee may also be trying to do this for another reason. This book touches on many common themes of that era, and one of them was sexism. She may be leading up to the kind of relationship that most men and women had in that day and age, where the man acted superior, and was treated as such. The way Harper Lee has Jem order Scout around, while listening to anything that Dill has to say. This is a growing gap, that by the end of the novel will probably get very large. Harper Lee may be addressing sexism in the same way she addresses racism here, or it may be a much simpler, pretext, but we will never really know.

How is Scout treated differently than she used to be? Does Jem have more respect for her after the Radley incident? How is the relationship between Dill and Scout different than between Jem and Scout?