Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird: Character Analysis. What Do They Have in Common?

“Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but bear in mind it is a sin to kill a mockingbird….“Mockingbirds do not do a single issue but make music for us to take pleasure in. They do not eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do 1 issue but sing their hearts out for us. That is why it is a sin to kill a mockingbird” (90). Harper Lee utilizes the mockingbird to communicate her theme of the defense of the innocent. In Harper Lee’s, To Kill a Mockingbird, it is evident that in the little town of Maycomb, racial intolerance and gossip impairs the community’s good judgments. She shows that, Arthur “Boo” Radley, Atticus Finch, and Tom Robinson do no harm their only crime is singing their hearts out for what they believe in.

In order to understand why Arthur “Boo” Radley is a mockingbird, it is vital to recognize how he silently watches Jem and Scout. He resembles a mockingbird simply because of his all-natural want to please the kids with the gifts he puts in the tree and his tender compassion for them when they stand outdoors shivering in the cold watching Miss Maudie’s fire. When Sheriff Tate is determined to report that Mr. Ewell fell on the knife, it showed that he does not think that either Jem or “Boo” Radley must face an inquiry about whether or not one particular killed Bob Ewell. Initially, Atticus resists Sheriff Tate’s conclusion even so, as he listens to Sheriff Tate his thoughts is changed, “…To my way of thinkin’, Mr. Finch, taking the one particular man who’s carried out you and this town a fantastic service an‘ draggin’ him with his shy ways into the limelight—to me, that’s a sin. It’s a sin and I’m not about to have it on my head” (275). Scout goes on to say “Well, it’d be sort of like shootin‘ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?” (276) This assertion implies that, like killing a mockingbird, arresting Boo would serve no valuable objective, and harm a person who never ever meant anyone any harm. But in chapter ten when Atticus shoots the dog, it was okay simply because the dog was dangerous. Moreover, the evening Boo Radley saves their lives, Jem and Scout hear a mockingbird in the Radley’s yard, “High above us in the darkness a solitary mocker poured out his repertoire in blissful unawareness of whose tree he sat in, plunging from the shrill kee, kee of the sunflower bird to the irascible qua-ack of a bluejay, to the sad lament of Poor Will, Poor Will, Poor Will”(254-255). Jem and Scout noticing that Boo was not home foreshadowed what was going to take place in the chapter. Harper Lee is attempting to show that Boo is a prime example of a mockingbird in the novel but putting an actual mockingbird in Boo’s yard. Boo Radley pours out his songs of joy or sympathy in a type of blissful unawareness of the consequences.

Element of being a mockingbird demands a person that articulates the concept of it being a sin to kill a mockingbird. Atticus Finch and his family have been subjected to anger with no getting carried out anything incorrect. When Atticus was explaining his reasoning for taking on this stressful case he emphasized,” ‘The principal a single is, if I didn’t I couldn’t hold up my head in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislature…. Scout, merely by the nature of the perform, each lawyer gets at least one particular case in his lifetime that affects him personally” (75). Atticus chooses the moral appropriate above all else and leads his life to set an instance for his youngsters. Once racial prejudice clouds a person’s thoughts it speedily becomes impossible for that person to resemble a true mockingbird. That is why Atticus knows he should attempt to defend the innocent of what ever type simply because if he does not, he could shed the spirit of the mockingbird that lives in him. Atticus is one particular of handful of characters in the novel who is racially tolerant, so he wants his little ones to comprehend that, “You in no way actually recognize a individual till you contemplate items from his point of view – until you climb into his skin and stroll around in it” (30). This quote shows Atticus giving Scout the critical piece of moral advice that governs her improvement for the rest of the novel. The basic wisdom of Atticus’s words reflects the uncomplicated manner in which he guides himself by this sole principle. His potential to relate to his kids is manifested in his restatement of this principle in terms that Scout can comprehend, “climb into his skin and stroll about in it”. Scout struggles, with varying degrees of good results, to put Atticus’s suggestions into practice and to reside with sympathy and understanding toward other people. At the end of the book, she succeeds in comprehending Boo Radley’s viewpoint, fulfilling Atticus’s advice in Chapter 3 and delivering the novel with an optimistic ending regardless of the considerable darkness of the plot. Atticus succeeds in demonstrating each the innocence of his client and the peculiar sickness of the Jim Crow society. He is nearly like a mother mockingbird, defending its chicks.

An additional character in To Kill a Mockingbird who resembles a mockingbird is Tom Robinson. As a black man in a time of prejudice, Tom had been shunned by society his complete life. Scout, thinking about Mr. Underwood’s editorial about the death of Tom Robinson, thought,” Mr. Underwood didn’t talk about miscarriages of justice, he was writing so young children could realize. Mr. Underwood just figured it was a sin to kill cripples, be they standing, sitting, or escaping. He likened Tom’s death to the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children…”(241). Tom’s good character and total innocence make him resemble the harmless songbird. Not understanding that his ideal likelihood remains to bide his time and failing to grasp something other than his crushing desire to escape, Tom seems like a frantic, caged songbird. Tom Robinson was usually prepared to aid Mayella, and when he was explaining why he would help her, he produced a important mistake. He replied,”Yes, suh. I felt proper sorry for her, she seemed to try more’n the rest of ‘em” (197). In these times blacks were not permitted to feel sorry for a white individual. The lawyer treated him very unfairly in the course of his interrogation, calling him boy the complete time. All Tom wanted to do was assist, just like a mockingbird singing, and however since of the color of his skin he was ridiculed for it.

Like innocent mockingbirds, Atticus Finch, Boo Radley, and Tom Robinson have been all persecuted by society however had done absolutely nothing wrong.