Tkam Symbolism In To Kill A Mockingbird By E. Lee

Carter Spaulding

Vande Guchte

Honors 10 B

5/15/23

TKAM Symbolism Essay

“Symbols are powerful because they are the visible signs of invisible realities.” (Saint Augustine) Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, takes place in the 1930s, amidst the Great Depression. This novel follows the story of Jem Finch, a ten-year-old boy, and his sister Scout Finch, a six-year-old girl. Growing up in the incredibly racist society of Maycomb County, these children are met with a massive change. Their father Atticus, who is a white lawyer, takes on the case defending Tom Robinson, who is a disabled black man accused of raping a white woman. In her novel, Lee uses the symbols of the Snowman, the snow, and the mockingbird to foreshadow events later in the book. To begin, Additionally, Lee uses the symbol of snow to symbolize the whitewashing of society, this event is used to

Jem and Scout want to make a snowman however, there is not enough snow. So they begin scooping, molding, smoothing, the dirt into the distinct three-circled shape of a snowman. They then add the snow on top of the dirt, to make their snowman white. This is seen when Scout narrates, “Jem scooped up an armful of dirt, patted it into a mount on which he added another load, and another until he had constructed a torso…Jem scooped up some snow and began plastering it on” (Lee 89). “Dirt” stands for black people, while the “snow” which is plastered on stands for white people. Later on in the novel, Scout came home from school being picked on by her classmates for her father's decision to defend a black man. Atticus says, “I’m simply defending an Negro-his name’s Tom Robinson” (Lee 100). This event was foreshadowed by the snowman because Atticus Finch, the snow, comes together with Tom Robinson, the dirt, to work together on Robinson’s