To+Kill+A+Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, is a book focused on the trial of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white women, Mayella Ewell. To kill a mockingbird is an analogy used throughout the book representing some of the people in Maycomb County. To kill a mockingbird is considered a sin because mockingbirds are completely innocent, never have done anything wrong, just play music for people to enjoy. The first mockingbird is Tom Robinson who goes to court and eventually sentence to death for allegedly raping Mayella Ewell. As we find out during the trial, thanks to Atticus Finch, that Tom was innocent. The real story was that Mayella lured Tom into a shed, but Bob Ewell, her father, caught them. For punishment Bob beat Mayella and came up with the rape charge for Tom. Even though the jury seemed convinced by Atticus they still went the same way, “Judge Taylor was polling the jury: Guilty…guilty…guilty…guilty…” (Page 211) This was done because the jury didn’t want to seem out of the ordinary by voting a black man’s word innocent against a white man’s. Tom Robinsons a mockingbird because he was unrightfully punished for something he didn’t do, just because of his skin color.

Another mockingbird is Boo Radley who has always had a bad rep with the county since he was a kid and stole a car. Boo Radley had ended up staying inside his house for 25 years just to avoid embarrassment, because of staying inside he managed to earn another rep as a 6’8” monster that eats live squirrels. Though, later in the book Scout, Atticus’s daughter, finds out he is just a normal, but shy, man after he saves Jem and Scout’s lives when being attacked by Bob Ewell. Scout ends up agreeing with Heck Tate the sheriff that it would be a bad thing to tell the county about Boo saving their lives because he’s so shy.”Well, it’d be sorta like shootin’ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it.”(Page 276)

The book also has another theme about to show that kids are better judges of character then adults. One of the biggest reasons why is because kids are not judgmental at all so they don’t worry about what others think of them because they don’t worry about the other. Even if children do something out of the ordinary others just accept it and let it go, however this is the exact opposite for adults, if they do something out of the ordinary it will be there for a long time and will go into the man’s reputation. Because of this it’s much easier for the adults just to vote guilty and not have any attention drawn to them. This has made it so Tom Robinson stood nearly no chance at all. “Cry about the hell white people gives colored folks, without even stopping to think that they’re people too.” (Page 201)

To summarize this essay it shows that several people in the book were mockingbirds whether there choice or not. Also, because children aren’t judgmental and show little hate they would be great judges of character.