Tokillamockingbird Essay, Research Paper

***Novel Analysis***

word count-1894

To Kill a Mockingbird

In 1960, Harper Lee published her critically acclaimed book To Kill a

Mockingbird. Only a year after being published the American classic

novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in fiction as well as the

Brotherhood Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

Gregory Peck stared as Atticus in the successfully adapted 1962 motion

picture of To Kill a Mockingbird that won an Academy Award. This book

is based on many childhood experiences that Lee herself encountered

growing up in Southern Alabama. This book is based on three children

that learn about goodness and courage throughout their adolescence. In

the course of their growing up the children do a great deal of learning,

but little of that learning takes place in school… is life itself, their

experience(Schuster 507-508). The apparent message of To Kill a

Mockingbird is a plea for racial tolerance and understanding.

Atticus Finch is a small-town lawyer who is considered an extremely

morally upright man. He must defend an innocent black man in court

who has been convicted of raping a white woman. This widower was left

with two children when his wife died when the younger of the two, Jean

Louise (Scout) Finch was just two years old. When the story initially

begins Scout is six years old. The events of this story are told from the

view point of this tomboy of a female whose older brother, Jeremy

Atticus (Jem) Finch, was just nearing his teens. Jem Finch is

approximately four years older than his sister. He is direly protective of

Scout and obviously quieter and more reserved than Scout.

With the locale of To Kill a Mockingbird being in a small-town in

southern Alabama by the name of Maycomb, this story has various

examples of bigotry and bereaved people. To Kill a Mockingbird is set in

the mid-1930’s which was during the Depression Period. The majority of

Maycomb’s townspeople have lost all of their money and are barely

getting by. Some of the populace get paid for their services not by money

but what the customer can afford to part with. The three year span that

this story covers utilizes the time at which is at hand.

One form of symbolism is the actions of the children in this novel. For

instance, the building of a snowman by Jem and Scout one winter is very

symbolic. There was not enough snow to make a snowman entirely out of

snow, so Jem made a foundation out of dirt, and then covered it with

what snow they had. The creation of the snowman by Jem can be seen as

being symbolic of Jem trying to cover up the black man and showing that

he is the same as the white man, that all human beings are virtually the

same. Also the actions of Atticus Finch are also symbolic of the prejudice

South. It may not seem so at first, but the shooting of the rabid dog by

Atticus was greatly illustrative. Here the rabid dog, Tim Johnson,

represents prejudice, and how, like a rabid dog, it spreads its disease

throughout the South. Atticus Finch is seen as the hero as he kills racism

and prejudice, not allowing it to spread itself any further. Realistically,

Atticus was unable to kill the prejudice of Maycomb county.

The story of To Kill a mockingbird takes place in Alabama during the

Depression. It is narrated by the main character, Scout Finch. Her father,

Atticus, is a lawyer with high moral standards. She, Jem, and their friend

Dill are intrigued by the local rumors that are about their neighbor, a man

named Boo Radley who never sets foot out of his house. The innocent

childhood games that tumbles into something adult and serious is a fairly

common theme in fiction, but I have not for some time seen the idea used

so forcefully as in To Kill a Mockingbird… The game is ‘making Boo come

out’ which the children of a Southern lawyer play outside the old home of

a family of foot-washing Baptists where, according to one among many

legends, Boo Radley has been chained up for years and years for stabbing

his father with scissors (Waterhouse 580). Dill is from Mississippi but

spends the summer in Maycomb with his aunt at a house near the

Finches.

The children are curious to know more about Boo, and create a

mini-drama to enact which tells the events of his life as they know them.

They Slowly begin moving closer to the house itself, which is said to be

haunted. They try leaving notes for Boo on his windowsill, but they are

caught by Atticus. Atticus reprimands them firmly. Then they try

sneaking to the house at night and looking through its windows.

However, Boo’s brother, Nathan Radley, who lives with him, thinks he

hears a prowler and begins firing his gun. The children get away, and

Jem loses his pants in the fence. When he returns to the house that

night, his ripped pants have been folded and roughly sewn up.

Other strange things happen to the Finch kids. A certain tree near

the Radley house has a hole in which little presents are often left for

them, such as pennies and gum. When they leave a note for the giver of

these gifts, Nathan plugs it up with cement the next day. The next

winter brings unexpected cold and snow, and Miss Maudie’s house

catches. While Jem and Scout, shivering, watch the blaze from near the

Radley house, someone puts a blanket around Scout. She doesn’t realize

until afterwards that Boo must have been this one to do this.

Atticus decides to accept a case involving a black man named Tom Robinson

who has been accused of raping a very poor white girl named Mayella Ewell,

a member of the notorious Ewell family, who belong to the layer a Maycomb

society that people refer to as “trash.” The Finches all face harsh criticism in racist Maycomb because of Atticus’s

decision to defend Tom, but he insists upon going through with the case

because his conscience could not let him do otherwise. Atticus knows

that Tom has almost no chance because the white jury will never believe

his story. He doesn’t care though because he wants to reveal the truth

about what happened to his fellow townspeople as well as expose their

bigotry.

Scout and Jem find themselves whispered at and taunted, and they

have trouble keeping their tempers. At a family Christmas gathering,

Scout beats up her cloying relative Francis when he accuses Atticus of

ruining the family name. Jem cuts off the tops of an old neighbor’s

flower brushes after she derides Atticus, and then as punishment he has

to read out loud to her every day while she breaks her morphine

addiction. Atticus holds this old woman up as an example of true

courage: the will to keep fighting even when you know you can’t win.

The time for the trial draws closer, and Atticus’s sister Alexandra

comes to stay with the family. She is proper and old-fashioned and

wants to shape Scout into the model of the Southern feminine ideal,

much to Scout’s resentment. Dill runs away from his home, where his

mother and new father don’t seem interested in him, and stays in

Maycomb for the summer of Tom’s trial. The night before the trial, Tom

is moved into the county jail, and Atticus, fearing a possible lynching,

stands guard outside the jail door all night. Jem is concerned about him,

and the three children sneak into town to find him. A group of men

arrive ready to cause some violence to Tom, but Scout runs out and

begins to speak to one of the men, the father of one of her classmates

in school. Her innocence brings them out of their mob mentality, and

they leave.

The trial pits the evidence of the white Ewell’s against Tom’s

evidence. According to the Ewell’s, Mayella asked Tom to do some work

for her while her father was out, and Tom came into their house and

forcibly beat and raped Mayella until her father appeared and scared

him away. Tom says that Mayella invited him inside, then threw her

arms around him and began to kiss him. When her father arrived, he

flew into a rage and beat her, while Tom ran away in fright. According to

the sheriff’s testimony, Mayella’s bruises were on the right side of her

face. Tom Robinson’s left arm is useless due to an old accident, whereas

Mr. Ewell leads with his left. Given the evidence, Tom should go free,

but after hours of deliberation, the jury pronounces him guilty.

Jem has trouble handling the results of the trial, feeling that his

trust in the goodness and rationality of humanity has been betrayed.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ewell has been threatening Atticus and other people

connected with the trial because he feels humiliated. He gets his

revenge on night while Jem and Scout are walking home from Halloween

play at their school. He follows them home in the dark, then runs at

them and attempts to kill them. Jem breaks his arm, and Scout, who

wearing a confirming costume, is helpless throughout the attack.

However, the elusive Boo Radley stabs Mr. Ewell and saves them. Scout

finally has a chance to meet the shy and nervous Boo. The sheriff

declares that Mr. Ewell fell on his own knife so that Boo won’t have to be

tried for murder. Scout walks Boo home. He goes inside and she never

sees him again.

Each character in this novel, from Atticus Finch to Arthur Radley,

gives the reader a message of some sort, but the most interesting

character is Jeremy Atticus (Jem) Finch. This character changes

considerably over the course of the novel. At first this character is seen

as Scout’s companion, playmate, and equal. Then Jem becomes more

aware of the difference in age between himself and Scout which makes

him not want to be embarrassed in front of his fifth grade friends. This is

an example of sexual discrimination that is common in young children.

At this particular part of the story Jem is seen as the wiser older

brother. This change in Jem takes place when the Finch children begin

school. Tom Robinson’s trial and the attack from Mr. Ewell cause him to

be exposed to injustice and cruelty of human nature. This forces Jem to

act almost grown up by the end of the story.

Harper Lee’s reputation as an author rests on her only novel, To Kill a

Mockingbird. To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel of strong contemporary national

significance. And it deserves serious consideration. But first of all it is a story

so admirably done that it must be called honorable and engrossing (Sullivan

1).This novel has been admired by many since it was first written, and it is a

story that deals with racism in the 1930s. To Kill a Mockingbird contains a

number of complex themes but the one that remains is that Lee utilized this

novel to project a better understanding of racism and its impartiality.