To Kill a MockingbirdEssay title: To Kill a MockingbirdTo Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is an award-winning novel, published in 1960. Through six-year old Scout, her narrator, Harper Lee drew an affectionate and detailed portrait of Maycomb, Alabama, a small, sleepy, depression-era town. The main plot concerns the trial of an unjustly accused black man who is steadfastly defended by Scouts father, a respected lawyer. Covering a period of one year during Scouts childhood in Alabama, the story reflects the details of small-town life in the South and examines the painfully unjust consequences of ignorance, prejudice, and hate, as well as the values of courage, honor, and decency. Harper Lee shows that what appears may not always be real by presenting life like situations during the story.
One of the main themes in To Kill A Mockingbird is “racism”. Maycomb has both a black and white community. Both sides have racial views about each other. When Jem and Scout go to the black church a woman comes out and says, “You Ain’t got no business bringin’ white chillun here – they got their church, we out ours.” (Pg. 119) Both communities are hostile towards each other. When a black man is accused of a crime he doesn’t commit, he is still found guilty because of his skin color. It is stated in the book, “In our courts, when its white man’s word against a black man’s, the white always wins. They’re ugly, but those are the facts of life.” (Pg. 220) However most of the white people agree with this. Most of them think that Tom Robinson is guilty just because of the color of his skin.
The Radley property also threatens the lives of people brave enough to venture near it. The children believe that anything that comes from the Radleys soil is poison, including the nuts and fruits on the trees. Jem yells at Scout once saying about the Radley property: “Dont you know youre not supposed to even touch the house over there? Youll get killed if you do” (pg. 33). Jem also goes so far as to say, “if Dill wants to get himself killed, all he had to do was go up and knock on the front door” (pg. 13) No child has ever died from touching something on the Radley property, yet the children continue to believe it to be true. They envision Boo, Finch’s neighbor who never came out of his house, as a horrible beast that eats squirrels
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But as the children are told, something is amiss with what’s happening in Radley. At the start of the first season, there are many children who know of an unknown ghost of a bird, whose mother and father seem to have died in a fire while sleeping in the dorm room. Now the real Ghost (I think) is found, but they don’t know what because none of them seem to be able to remember or respond to any of the clues they hear, nor even know how to talk to it in real time. Even then, no one knows the truth which leads to a much more dangerous situation: how did you get into Radley after all this time? How did you become the ghost and why are it there?
As the children are told, there is absolutely no proof that the ghost is real! As the house collapses, the Children discover that it has been a “giant ghost” for nearly forty-years, which they have been trapped inside! As the children watch their house collapse with the sound of the collapse, they find out that there are no living bodies inside the house – where do they go?
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As they witness the collapse, the children learn nothing since there is nothing they can do. Even the Ghost itself is scared and afraid to say anything. As soon as a large cloud appears, the children suddenly become terrified. As the entire house collapses, they wake up. They scream and shake, and the ghost tells them to go quickly – but no one is out to try to get through, and even their dog (who is the most loved one in the village) doesn’t budge. The children begin to panic, as soon as they get up that the Ghost is indeed there, they begin to cry, and the Ghost gives them a hug and tells them that they were really in Radley’s house (who only had a car, yet had all the clothes on and needed to take care of the other children for the funeral). They ask the Ghost if he wants to take care of them or not – but only then do they realise that they are not all alone in the house, and he tells them to go and save it for the funeral.
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As they are about to leave, they suddenly start running through the streets; and there suddenly is a noise which seems to be coming from behind: the sound of a car hitting another building. The children, scared from the sound of the cars hitting, turn to find two bodies – the youngest and the youngest. All of them immediately go to investigate, just to discover that the ghost is indeed there. If they don’t hurry, it will become very difficult to investigate. They decide