To Kill A Mockinbird

Essay by crennoJunior High, 9th gradeA+, March 2004

download word file, 3 pages 4.5

To Kill a Mockingbird

"Remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. "Your father's right," she said. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy ... but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." (90). Throughout To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, one will see that nearly every character is a mockingbird. In the symbolic meaning of the word, a mockingbird is innocent and pure. Tom Robinson, Atticus's children, and Boo Radley's take center stage when they're innocence is attacked.

Tom Robinson is easily identified as an innocent who is unfairly attacked. As Mr. Underwood compared "Tom's death to the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children..." (241). He was clearly innocent; the only thing that he was guilty of was being an African American.

That condemned him to death far more then any amount of evidence or testimonies the prosecution provided or could have provided. Tom was a good person but even Scout, the youngest and most naive of the characters, was able to figure out that "Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella opened her mouth and screamed." (241) Atticus had proved it physically impossible for Tom to do such a thing with his disability. Not only did he do that, he gave the jury another more feasible attacker, Mr. Ewell. Atticus showed that for someone to have raped Mayella and left the bruises that she had the person would have had to be able to use both hands and be left handed. Tom was a cripple and his only good hand was his right so it was not...