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What Does Tom Robinson Symbolize In To Kill A Mockingbird

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The Mockingbirds in To Kill a Mockingbird A symbol is something that represents or suggests something else. In To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee, there are many symbols, but the main one is the mockingbird, a thing that does nothing but good. In To Kill a Mockingbird the mockingbird symbol is used to represent the characters of Tom Robinson and Boo Radley. Tom Robinson is a Black person living in Maycomb County. We see that he is well-suited for the mockingbird symbol as he is unfairly put on trial and found guilty of a crime that he didn’t commit. During the trial, he explains to the judge that he was just trying to help Mayella without any expectation of being repaid and when questioned by the judge he responded, “No suh, not …show more content…

Although not Black like Tom Robinson was, he was also treated unfairly by Maycomb’s people. Jem told Scout about the rumors of Boo Radley as, “he [Boo Radley] went out at night when the moon was down and peeped in windows,” and “any stealthy small crimes committed in Maycomb were his work” (Lee 9). We can see here that Boo Radley was thought by many people in Maycomb to be a person that is like a wild animal and is evil-minded and mysterious. Because of these rumors, people do not treat him fairly and he has to stay home the entire time. He isn’t even treated fairly by his father as he tries to block off his communication with the outside world when he was sending gifts to Jem and Scout through the knot-hole in the tree. We find out that Boo Radley isn’t anything like what the rumors depict him as. He turned out to be a very nice person that cares about the people close to him. At the end of the book, Atticus passed by him and said “Thank you for my children'' (Lee 276). Atticus, being an adult and knowing more than Scout and Jem, realizes what he has done and how he saved his children and Maycomb as he did a favor getting rid of Bob Ewell who was already trying to kill Jem and Scout and probably would have done even worse things in the future. There are also many other examples of Bob being exceptionally kind such as when he retrieved and sewed Jem’s ripped pants back together. I think that his virtues of

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