To Kill A Mockingbird Character Analysis

“Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people’s gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. Thats why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (119). In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, the first mention of a mockingbird appears when Jem and Scout are learning how to use their new air rifles. Atticus doesn’t want to teach them how to shoot the air rifles, but he gives them one rule to follow: do not kill mockingbirds. Later Scout, the main character, is told by Miss Maudie about how it is a sin to kill a mockingbird because they are innocent and they don't do anything to anyone. Throughout this story, there are several characters who are portrayed as mockingbird figures. Jem, Scout, Tom Robinson, and Boo Radley all fit the symbol of a mockingbird because they all start off innocent but are later changed dramatically by the brokenness of the world.
The first mockingbird figures are the Finch children, Jem and Scout. Jem is a mockingbird figure because he starts of innocent and later his innocence is taken. In this book, Jem starts off as a little kid who is innocent and hasn't done anything bad. He doesn't realize how broken the world is until later when he is older and more mature. The perfect example of this is at the courthouse when Jem begins to grasp the idea that the world is not perfect and realizes Tom Robinson is innocent. Jem doesn't understand why Tom is being falsely convicted, so when the verdict comes in Jem is completely torn and Scout tells the reader what it was like: “‘Guilty...guilty...guilty...guilty…’ I peeked at Jem: his hands were white from gripping the balcony rail, and his shoulders jerked as if each “guil...

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... children's lives and becomes a hero. Scout sums these deeds up in the end of the book: "Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad" (373). Boo Radley did all these things but Scout was sad that she never gave anything in return. She now realizes that Boo isnt a bad guy afterall. All this is Boo's way of making music just like a mockingbird makes music. The people of Maycomb see him as a scary and bad person, but in reality hes not a bad guy at all. By the way Boo Radley makes music and the fact that he is an innocent man, he is the perfect image of a mockingbird in this book.