To Kill a Mockingbird is a very complex book with multiple different themes presented within it. These themes are shown through the characters in the story and how they react to the situations they were thrown in to. The largest role in the book is actually played by the setting of the story due to it being set in southern Alabama in the 1930s. This makes more troubles and confusion for the characters because of the racist lifestyle most people in this time period lived by. Harper Lee created characters to be blinded by ignorance and show hatred for people proven innocent of misdeed.
The Evil’s Tolls “Inside each of us, there is the seed of both good and evil. It's a constant struggle as to which one will win. And one cannot exist without the other.”--Eric Burdon. The book To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, is based on the town of Maycomb during the great depression. Scout and Jem, two kids, were faced with many hardships throughout the book; like a court case involving wrongful discrimination and other evils they will overcome.
Because Boo always hides himself in the corner so Scout helps him to go out. She helps him to come into the real world. Furthermore, Scout also realizes that Boo is also a mockingbird by saying “Well, it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?” (370) to his father. Mockingbird is a symbol for innocence, just like Boo, who gets imprisoned by his father because of a childish prank. Boo has given Jem and Scout many gifts, gifts in the tree, a blanket around Scout’s shoulders, and most important at all, their lives.
Often times, this helps people compress the unknown, and fill in the gaps to the clues that don’t make sense. Not understanding the unknown is hard, and leads to people jumping to conclusions when they don 't even know exactly what happened. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, rumors spread throughout the town creating stereotypes and changing many people’s once honorable reputation and unfairly forcing them to alter their way of life forever. One situation where rumors got the best of an innocent person was in the situation of Tom Robinson. Tom, and African American living in Maycomb county, is accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a poor, white female.
Judging a book by its cover is an often used term that people use to describe a situation where many people are stereotypical. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, a book written about racism and discrimination, is projecting this lesson. This story is written in the narrative of a woman named Scout, who tells her tale of a specific story when she was a young child. It takes place in the 1930’s in Maycomb County of Alabama, where discrimination is typical and normal for the town to do. Jem, a mysterious, curious, and maturing brother to Scout, gets fascinated by what Atticus, his father, does for a living.
Killing a mockingbird is a sin in many cultures because of the animal’s innocent nature; in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird she immaculately illustrates this. To Kill a Mockingbird is about the Finch family, which consists of: Scout (Jean), Atticus, Calpurnia, and Aunt Alexandra. They reside in the modest town of Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930’s. The father of the family, Atticus, is defending a colored person, Tom Robinson, in a court case regarding rape. In turn, this affects Atticus’ children, Scout and Jem, negatively.
“Scout, I’m beginning to understand something. I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all this time…” (227). Prejudice and discrimination are major issues that are present in the town of Maycomb; Scout and her brother Jem are young children who learn about the disturbing existence of the bigotry that they were previously unaware of in their familiar southern hometown throughout the trial of Tom Robinson, an innocent African American who is accused of rape by a white woman. To Kill a Mockingbird introduces a world that harbors prejudice against some of its very citizens and describes how discrimination was a major flaw in society and still is a flaw present day society. The author, Harper Lee develops
Boo Radley taught them, in the sense, that you can’t Judge a book by its cover. At the beginning of the novel, Jem and Scout pictured Boo to be this “...malevolent Phantom (Lee 10).” that went out at night and looked through people’s windows. But after leaving them gifts in the tree and putting a blanket on Scout while she was standing out in the cold, Jem’s and Scout’s Perception of him began to evolve from a monster to a person. And eventually, after Boo saves Jem and Scout from Bob Ewell, and she takes him home, Scout realizes that “... Just standing on the Radley front porch was enough (Lee 374),” for her to see through Boo’s eyes. She finally begins to understand Boo and why he acts the way that he does.
However, in the end, the people in the jury cannot see this and Tom is found guilty simply because of his skin color. Finally, another symbol in this story is the knot hole in the tree in the Radley’s yard. This symbolizes the children’s growing friendship with Boo. Boo knew that the children were afraid of him, so he quietly tried to make friends with them throughout the novel by leaving small gifts for them in the knot hole. Since Boo was never outside, this was the only way that he could communicate with the children.
Discrimination is the one of the, if not the biggest themes portrayed in the novel To kill A Mockingbird written by Harper Lee. As we already know the biggest form of discrimination in the novel is racism.However, there are many forms of other discrimination such as Jem being put down for being who she loves to be, a classic Tomboy. Another example would be Boo Radley being hated by almost every citizen in Maycomb for no reason at all, none of these mean citizens even know Boo personally. There is however some good to this evil. Atticus and others were different from the norm and stood up for people.