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Tom Robinson Sin To Kill A Mockingbird

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In the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the mockingbird symbolizes innocence and purity,and as Miss Maudie says, “It is a sin to kill a mockingbird”. Scout and Jem Finch live with their father, Atticus (who is a lawyer), and cook, Calpurnia, in Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930s. When Atticus takes up a case about a black man, Tom Robinson, raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, he proves that Mayella was the one raping Tom, humiliating her father, Bob Ewell. Tom Robinson is later shot seventeen times before his appeal, and Bob Ewell is stabbed by Boo Radley because he was trying to kill Jem and Scout as revenge for Atticus disproving him in court and showing how he abused Mayella. Throughout the story, Lee uses the mockingbird to symbolize the theme of the loss of innocence by way of the characters Tom Robinson, Jem Finch, and Boo …show more content…

Tom Robinson never hurt Mayella Ewell, yet he was forced into court and eventually killed by Bob Ewell. Since it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird, Bob Ewell was eventually punished for his sin by being stabbed by Boo Radley. When Lee states “The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box” (220). He wanted to help Mayella Ewell because he “felt sorry for her”, even though it was crazy for a black man to feel sorry for a white woman. Mayella wanted affection anywhere she could get it, so she decided to prey on poor Tom Robinson. Tom is good to all people because when Mayella Ewell offers him a nickel for his services, he says no he does them for free. Although Tom Robinson is innocent, he is biased against because of the color of his skin. In the long (and short) run, Tom Robinson was as innocent as a mockingbird, and after Bob Ewell murdered him, he paid for his sins. Tom was just as innocent as a mockingbird and was killed simply because his skin is

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