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Examples Of Loss Of Innocence In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Imagine that you are a black man that was caught at the scene of a crime that you did not commit, but you are to blame solely based on the color of your skin. Tom Robinson is a black man who is accused of raping a white girl named Mayella Ewell. Tom being black and Mayella white, he is automatically convicted of that crime and sentenced to death. The authorities would take the word of Mayella over Tom any day. Scout and Jem are the children of Atticus Finch, the lawyer who is trying to defend Tom Robinson in the court. In the article “Lynching” by Mark Twain, He talks about how mobs are formed by cowardly people. The three main themes in To Kill A Mockingbird are Loss of innocence, Power of words and Role of women. The first theme of To Kill A Mockingbird is Loss of innocence. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout is losing her innocence due to her lack of a filter and too much curiosity. “What’s Rape Cal?” (Lee, 165). Scout, due to her lack of a filter, does not realize that some questions are better left unanswered for her age. She never was told not to ask these sorts of questions, or of she was she did not listen. She is innocent in this sense and asking the questions that she does, she is losing that innocence piece by piece. If Atticus or another adult figure in her life were to tell her to not ask those kinds of questions, she may come to realize that they are not very appropriate. Scout does not have any idea how offensive or awkward her words might be to some people.

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