Luke starts teh story as a young boy and ends as a grown up, mentally, not physically. he sees so many things and is a part of so many things that force him to grow up fast. He loses his innocence throughout the novel. It starts when he sees the fight and finds out one the boys dies, this is the first of two murders that he witnesses as a 7 year old boy. Then he sees Tally naked in the river and his innocence continues to deplete. He is doing things that most kids his age don’t do. Along with losing his innocence, he also matures. He knows when to keep his mouth shut and also when to talk. He has a lot of courage for his age. When Cowboy threatens him he is scared but he stands his ground. That shows how mature he becomes throughout the book. The main point of all this is to prove that Luke Chandler grows up in “A Painted House.”