To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee :: To Kill a Mockingbird Essays

At the beginning of the novel, Scout is an innocent, good-heartedfive-year-old child who has no fellowship with the immoralitys of the world.As the novel progresses, Scout has her first contact with evil in theform of racial prejudice, and the basic development of her characteris governed by the pass of whether she go away emerge from thatcontact with her conscience and optimism intact or whether she will bebruised, hurt, or destroyed like Boo Radley and tom turkey Robinson. thankto Atticuss wisdom, Scout learns that though humanity has a greatcapacity for evil, it overly has a great capacity for good, and that theevil can often be mitigated if one approaches others with an outlookof sympathy and understanding.When he agrees to defend tom Robinson, a black man charged with rapinga purity woman, he ex mystifys himself and his family to the anger of thewhite community.Arthur Boo Radley - A recluse who never sets bag outside his house,Boo dominates the imaginations of Jem, Scout, and Dill. He is apowerful symbol of trade good swathed in an initial shroud ofcreepiness, leaving critical presents for Scout and Jem and emerge atan opportune moment to save the children. An intelligent childemotionally damaged by his cruel father, Boo provides an example ofthe threat that evil poses to innocence and goodness. He is one of thenovels mockingbirds, a good person wound by the evil of mankind. loading dock Ewell - A drunken, permanently unemployed section of Maycombspoorest family. In his knowingly wrongful accusation that Tom Robinsonraped his daughter, Ewell represents the menacing side of the Southignorance, poverty, squalor, and hate-filled racial prejudice.One of the books important subthemes involves the threat that hatred,prejudice, and ignorance pose to the innocent people such as TomRobinson and Boo Radley argon not prepared for the evil that theyencounter, and, as a result, they are destroyed.The comparatively well-off Finches stand near the top of May combs socialhierarchy, with most of the township beneath them. Ignorant countryfarmers like the Cunninghams lie below the townspeople, and the whitetrash Ewells rest below the Cunninghams. But the black community inMaycomb, despite its abundance of admirable qualities, squats beloweven the Ewells, enabling Bob Ewell to make up for his own lack ofimportance by persecuting Tom Robinson. These rigid social divisionsthat make up so much of the liberal world are revealed in the book to beboth incoherent and destructive.Mockingbird - The title of To Kill a Mockingbird has very littleliteral connection to the plot, but it carries a great deal of