Harper Lee has incorporated the representation of her most meaningful statement in the title of her novel, To Kill A Mockingbird. The many points of discussion which surface in Lee's book would certainly have partially submerged the parallel she created between Tom Robinson and the mockingbird. In any classic novel such as To Kill A Mockingbird, the myriad differences in thinking between readers allow for many different interpretations. The author of such a work, however, must constantly make decisions concerning the best ways to fulfill his or her purpose in writing; Harper Lee decided that the symbol of the mockingbird was not displayed prominently enough, and so made it the crux of her novel rather than one of its neglectable elements. With its seemingly unsuited title, Lee's book keeps readers waiting for the moment when a mockingbird pops up--and shows what the author truly wanted her audiences to find. When Jem and Scout Finch receive their first, longed-for air rifles, their instinctive desire to shoot birds is taken for granted. Their father refuses to teach them to shoot, but warns them that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird--the only time his children heard him call something a sin, reflecting how strongly he, and Lee, feel about this. After this order that they avoid their natural inclination towards shooting the colorless, brown mockingbird, Atticus tells his children that they may shoot as many blue jays as they like. These orders were certainly in opposition to...
Scout learned a number of things in the book, but most of them all refer back to a statement that Atticus and Calpurnia said, which goes, “It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird because all they do is sing their hearts our for us.” (Lee, pg. 90). Scout learned that about people, too. She learned that some people don’t do anything to you, so it would be a sin to do something mean in return. Over the course of the story Scout becomes more mature and learns the most important facts of life. She was living through a very difficult time and most of that helped her get through.
Shaw-Thornburg, Angela. “On Reading To Kill a Mockingbird: Fifty Years Later.” Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird: New Essays. Meyer, Michael J. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, 2010. 113-127. Print.
Harper Lee’s timeless novel To Kill a Mockingbird is told by Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch, a fiery young girl from the quiet town of Maycomb, Alabama. In defiance of the traditionally passive role of Southern women, Scout grew up as a tomboy and, like her older brother Jem, was unafraid to engage other children in physical confrontations. At the onset of the novel, Scout displayed these aggressive tendencies, fighting classmates whom she believed had wronged her or her family. However, Scout developed as a character in the first half of To Kill a Mockingbird to the extent that she was willing to walk away from fights that weren’t worth fighting. Scout’s willingness to engage in combat with other children early on in the novel was evident in the description of her treatment of Walter Cunningham after being punished for explaining his financial situation to her teacher. Scout described this fight, saying, “Catching Walter Cunningham in the schoolyard gave me some pleasure, but when I was rubbing his nose in the dirt Jem came by and told me to stop...Jem said, ‘…Scout here…she won’t fight you anymore.’ ‘I wouldn’t be too certain of that,’ I said” (Lee 30-31). As evidenced by this description, Scout had a quick temper and was just as willing as many of her male classmates to fight others, reflecting the combative sense of justice common to the children of her day. A key tenant of her aggressive morality was an unwillingness to turn away from a fight for fear of being called a coward. Scout held these beliefs throughout the beginning of the novel and fought many other children to defend her reputation. However, through moral instruction from her father, Atticus Finch, Scout was able to abandon much of her aggression. She grew to recognize...
The story, To Kill a Mockingbird is a very fine novel which exemplifies the life in the south and the human rights and values given to everybody. The book especially took the case of prejudice to a serious extreme. From the title, a mockingbird through the eyes of Harper Lee, is a person who has fallen victim to vicious stereotypes. The title To Kill a Mockingbird explains itself quite clearly in the end of the novel when Tom Robinson, one of the mockingbirds, is killed due to the stereotypes dumped upon him. Often, the use of stereotypes just breaks down the real truth of a person.
The book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, which is one of the best books, is filled with incredible connections and fantastic foreshadowing. Once you pick up this book, you will need the key of being able to dissect the book in order to unlock its full potential. Through the three-and-a-half year-long journey that is To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee takes Jeremy Atticus Finch and Jean Louise Finch through a never-ending pile of events. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is about Jem and Scout Finch and their childhood in Maycomb, Alabama. Their lives consist of a never-ending-chain-of-events, many interesting and unique people, and life’s lessons that give Jem, Scout, and Atticus a fresh view of the world. Not many people have actually seen and experienced Tom Robinson and Arthur “Boo” Radley, and this leads to incorrect thoughts about each character. Tom and Boo have a lot of good in them. They are both like Mockingbirds because they are both innocent humans harmed by the evil of mankind. In Harper Lee’s novel, both Boo Radley and Tom Robinson are innocent characters, but Boo’s kindness is hidden by rumors and Tom’s generosity is hidden by stereotypes.
Harper Lee’s only book, To Kill a Mockingbird, is the stereotypical tale of childhood and innocence, yet it successfully incorporates mature themes, like the racism in the South at the time, to create a masterpiece of a work that has enraptured people’s minds and hearts for generations. According to esteemed novelist Wally Lamb, “It was the first time in my life that a book had sort of captured me. That was exciting; I didn’t realize that literature could do that” (111). Scout’s witty narration and brash actions make her the kind of heroine you can’t help but root for, and the events that take place in Maycomb County are small-scale versions of the dilemmas that face our world today. Mockingbird is a fantastically written novel that belongs on the shelves for classic literature that everyone should take the time to read and appreciate for their execution of style and the importance of their content.
“You felt sorry for her, you felt sorry for her?” (Lee 197) A quote from Harper Lee’s award winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which says so much. It shows the prejudice present in the 1920’s and 1930’s and how a black man could not feel sorry for a white woman because he was black. Negroes were not treated as equals. In fact, Negroes were believed to be less than second-class citizens, even level with the animals on the social ladder and biologically inferior to whites. Negroes were lynched often in many states, without reason, by white mobs. Blacks weren’t treated right in any part of American society including the courtroom. , with both the lynching in the streets and the prejudice in the courtroom this was a time where blacks did not have a fair chance both in and out of court.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is considered such an incredible novel arguably because of all the symbolism used in it. Many subjects mentioned had a deeper meaning than one would typically expect from a story narrated by a nine-year-old girl. Various elements with a hidden purpose added on to the book’s theme. Many inconspicuously resembled something in a way that conveyed a powerful and important message relating to the plot and/or overall moral of the story. Three specific examples perfectly demonstrating how Lee included symbolism in her work so ingeniously are found in the mockingbirds constantly mentioned, Boo Radley, and the Finches.
After reading and studying Harper Lees novel To Kill a Mockingbird, I have concluded that Harper Lee used semantics and symbolism to develop the consistent theme of racism throughout the novel. While analysing different critic’s opinions and views of symbolism and semantics in To Kill a Mockingbird, I found many ideas that aligned with my hypothesis. The three critics and time periods were Mary D. Esselman (1990), Adam Smykowski (1996) and Annie Kasper (2006). The three critics were in agreement that Harper Lee uses this technique to enable the reader to understand society, in particular racism in the Southern American states in the
Chinese novelist Mo Yan once said the following: “One of the biggest problems in literature is the lack of subtlety.” But trends tend to prove otherwise. In Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill A Mockingbird”, which is often regard the best american novel ever written, subtlety is found rarely throughout. Whether it be in her characterization or allegory she fails to leave the reader with a shred of doubt about what or who she is talking about, through her incessant circumlocution, if it can be called that, she delivers a vivid and redundant recount of events through the eyes of a young Jean Louise “Scout” Finch. If a section of the story (which encompass numerous almost unrelated shorter stories) were to be taken and examined, The Trial (chapters 17-22) would prove the most fruitful, and so it will serve as the subject of this essay.
The United States of America is a grand place with many different features, and it needs grand pieces of art to describe it. When Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird was published, it was quickly deemed as one of those great pieces of literature. It was no coincidence that the novel about the childhood memories of Jean Louise “Scout” Finch was so fitting of the title, as it near perfectly exemplified some of the biggests issues Americans grapple with today and and provided many dynamic, detailed characters. Perhaps one of the most important characters within the novel is Atticus Finch — lawyer by day and caring father of Scout and her brother Jem by night. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses Atticus Finch’s sagacity, perseverance, and kind-heartedness to represent the role of those who are fighting for the well being of others.
Also the most significant symbol in this novel is the mockingbird symbol which represents innocent people victims of a cruel society. There were two mockingbirds that were killed because one was black and the other was creepy. This was a case of injustice because two people’s lives were taken away from them because of one’s race and one being different from others. Even in a court of law some people do not get a fare trial. Only in the end when we all stand before God he will give us all a fare trial. Mockingbirds and Finches are type of song birds. Harper Lee gave the main characters’ the last name “Finch”, because the family was innocent and accepted all their neighbors.
To Kill A Mockingbird is a bildungsroman novel by Harper Lee. In this novel there are many important and striking symbols. The repeated image of the mockingbird creates a strong and highly effective motif. Harper Lee first introduces the mockingbird to the reader in Chapter 10, when Atticus refuses to teach Scout and Jem how to shoot saying, ‘Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird’. Harper Lee emphasises Scout’s curiosity at her non-judgemental father expressing it is a ‘sin’ to do something, as she consults Miss Maudie. Miss Maudie tells Scout that, ‘Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy…That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.’ Harper Lee allows the reader to explore this motif through the use of characters in the novel and the prejudice and morally wrongdoings in the fictional town of Maycomb.
The book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee contain a very engaging family who are the Cunninghams. The Cunninghams are very poor; they are people who live in the woods. They are a family who depend highly on crops. Walter Cunningham, the 'father' of the family has to work hard on the cultivation of crops because crops is the only form of wages for them. The Cunninghams have no money. Their only way to survive is through paying others with their crops. The Cunninghams are not main characters in the book, but they are characters who 'brought out' other characters' personality. Harper Lee displays that there is a lot of prejudice going on in Maycomb by putting the Cunninghams in the book. "The Cunninghams [were] country folks, farmers"(21) who are very honest people in Maycomb, they "never took anything they [could not] pay back"(23), but they are unfairly mistreated by part of the society in Maycomb.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a very metaphoric book with many indistinguished significances. The three meanings of the book’s title have to do with the sinful nature of killing a songbird, the fate of racial biases, and the truth about the once feared, Boo Radley. Once identified, the signifigances clear up the understanding of the main messages to the reader.