User:Bmrbarre/Redone Themes section in TKAM
Themes[edit]
Reviewers and critics have highlighted the deep thematic elements of To Kill a Mockingbird. Lee most obviously deals with the issue of racism and the injustices it caused. Through her sympathetic portrayal of Tom Robinson and the vivid descriptions of the lack of justice he receives, culminating in his brutual murder with excessive use of force, Lee leads the reader to question the validity of racism.
Lee examines the effects of class and the Southern caste system in her novel. When Scout taunts a lower-class boy, she is rebuked by her father and Calpurnia, who state that it is wrong to judge a person based on his wealth or lack thereof. A variety of people with vastly different financial backgrounds are introduced: the lower-class Ewells and Cunninghams, who are both equally poor yet behave in very different ways, the wealthy but ostricized Mr. Dolphus Raymond, and the impoverished and alienated black community. Lee notes the resentment felt by the poor Ewells, who seem to take part in the trial to prove that they are better than another group, the blacks, even though they are the lowest of the whites: "poor white trash." The sum of this examination is the feeling that the stratification of society by wealth and class is wrong and leads to problems, as shown by the trial of Tom Robinson.
To Kill a Mockingbird looks at gender roles, specifically those involving Scout. She is a girl who is quickly becoming a young woman, yet someone who still identifies strongly with her male father and brother. One scholar writes, "Lee gradually demonstrates that Scout is becoming a feminist in the South, for with the use of first-person narration, she indicates that Scout/ Jean Louise still maintains the ambivalence about being a Southern lady she possessed as a child."
The destruction and loss of innocence is another key theme in Lee's novel. The titular mockingbird is a key motif of this theme, which first appears when Atticus, having given his children air-rifles for Christmas, allows their Uncle Jack to teach them to shoot. Atticus warns them that, although they can "shoot all the bluejays they want", they must remember that "it's a sin to kill a mockingbird". Confused, Scout approaches her neighbor Miss Maudie Atkinson, who explains that mockingbirds never harm other living creatures. She points out that mockingbirds simply provide pleasure with their songs, saying, "They don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us." Writer Edwin Bruell summarized the symbolism when he wrote in 1964, "'To kill a mockingbird' is to kill that which is innocent and harmless - like Tom Robinson." Throughout the book, Tom Robinson, who is, as Bruell mentions, innocent and harmless just like a mockingbird, is destroyed by the Ewells and the racist views of the inhabitants of Maycomb. Boo Radley is another innocent, yet he is shut up in his house, and this ruins his life. By witnessing these tragedies, the characters and the readers come to realize that it is indeed a sin to kill a mockingbird, or, literally, one who has done nothing to harm anyone.