Boo Radley Symbolism

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee there are many examples of symbolism throughout the whole book. There are many symbols that state the obvious of what they mean and stand for, but there are others that have a heavy meaning that goes deeper than many people tend to think when reading a book. A few symbols from the book include: the obvious which is the mockingbird, the snowman Jem and Scout build, Boo Radley, and the lie that Heck Tate tells to protect Boo Radley. First, the mockingbird is a very big symbol in this book. At the beginning of the book Jem and Scout Finch are taught that killing a mockingbird is a sin. To quote from the book, it states, “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.[pg. 119]” Harper Lee compares the mockingbird to many things in the book such as a black man named Tom Robinson. Mr. Robinson is accused of raping Mayella Ewell. This makes him seem like a mockingbird because he is innocent, but like killing a mockingbird being sinful the jury is sinning by not choosing to believe a man only because of his race. Secondly, the snowman that Jem and Scout build can be represented as

Tate knows that Boo killed Bob Ewell but knows that he did it to protect the kids because Bob would have killed them. Though Tate knows that if he says that Mr. Ewell’s death was no accident that it was murder and Boo was prosecuted as a victim he would automatically be sentenced because like Tom he is an innocent man but an outcast which people in the town do not like. His innocence to what he did makes him equivalent to a mockingbird. In the novel, Scout points out to Atticus what Heck Tate already knew, “Well, it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird, wouldn’t