To Kill a Mockingbird
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To Kill A MockingBird
by April Williams
The novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, like many others of its genre, is strongly influenced by the ideas of its author. Within this work, Lee uses symbols or metaphors with the mention of “the mockingbirds” of the book. Her ideas of who
they are and how they should be treated are manifested in this lesson to the children: “Mockingbirds dont do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They dont
nest in corncribs; they dont do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. Thats why its a sin to kill a mockingbird”(90). The time period is the 1930s in a small southern town called Maycomb. Atticus Finch is the town lawyer and he is fathering his two children by himself. Scout if an eight year old girl who has a mind of her own and is very independent. Jem, her brother, is 12 years old when the story opens.Atticus is the town lawyer and is defending Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. Maycomb is a small town, but still holds prejudice tight with both hands as change is hard to impart on a society. Thesis-Scout and Tom are two of the “mockingbirds” within this work due to their innocence and they have been harmed by society to a certain degree.
Scout is one of the less obvious mockingbirds because her troubles are of a lesser degree than her counterpart. Scout grew up playing all day with her older brother Jem and their friend and neighbor, Dill. Lead In- One day, as Jem had his thirteenth birthday, he states to Scout, C.D- “I declare to the Lord youre getting more like a girl everyday ( 51,52). Scout is being ostracized because she is a girl and the boys around her had reached a certain age in which their views towards her had changed. In a town like Maycomb during the 1930s, where men were the dominant gender and women were generally housewives, it is understandable how these kind of ideas would be absorbed by Jem and in turn influence his treatment of Scout. By ostracizing her, they have punished the innocent- they killed a mockingbird, when all it wanted to do was sing or in Scouts case, to play. Lead In- When Christmas rolls around, Atticus takes the children to his sisters home. One of Scouts cousins, Francis, is teasing Scout because Atticus is defending a black man accused of rape and most likely is innocent. Tom Robinson is going to trial and Atticus is his only hope of redemption. Frances taunts Scout, calling Atticus “a nigger lover,” among other names. Scout punches Francis in the mouth, and later gets in trouble due to Francis story that Scout started the entire argument, and he was an innocent victim (82-86). Again, the reader can see that the innocent is being punished, a mockingbird was killed and Scout has not only lost her innocence but her naivete is being threatened as well. She is being told to take the punishment she does not deserve, when all she wanted to do was to enjoy Christmas and to play with her cousin. The injustice is being brought out by Lee, by an innocent being accused of false accusations and the male figure is usually considered to be right, once again. The author brings out the mockingbird motif in a young child and the reader is shown how easy it is to take away ones virtue. Scout responds by turning to Miss Maude for support, someone who could perhaps relate to Scout from her standpoint as a woman.
Mayella Ewell has accused Tom wrongly of raping her. She is a white female, and she broke the barriers of society and when caught, she blamed it