“Well, it’d sort of be like shootin’ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?”. To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee. Based during the Great Depression, this novel follows the point of view of six-year-old Scout Finch, the daughter of a white lawyer, Atticus Finch, who defends a black man, Tom Robinson, for raping a white woman because it was the right thing to do. Scout lives with her brother, Jem, her father, and Calpurnia, who practically raises the kids. Scout and Jem are kept up-to-date on their father’s case, and they face the backlash and grief as Tom is wrongfully charged as guilty. They are exposed to the ultimate consequence that Tom will wrongfully face. As you may know, foreshadowing is the act of an author implying something will …show more content…
The Mockingbird is originally brought up as the only thing Atticus has ever called a sin, which is why Scout remembers it. Atticus says, “Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a Mockingbird” (Lee 103). Later on, it is stated that it is a sin to kill a Mockingbird because they are innocent, and all they do is sing songs for other people to enjoy. As the plot thickens, we get introduced to a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson, someone who was innocent but got killed. Tom Robinson gets tried for rape and gets sentenced guilty, even though the story did not add up in the slightest, and quickly becomes a victim of overkill. Atticus says, “Seventeen bullet holes in him…they didn’t have to shoot him that much, Cal” (Lee 268). This shows, yet again, another story about Tom Robinson that is nearly impossible to be true. Tom Robinson didn’t need to be shot seventeen times, nevertheless, it was almost impossible for him to try to escape without help either way. Therefore, Harper Lee uses the Mockingbird to foreshadow Tom Robinson’s death by stating why it is a sin to kill a Mockingbird early on and representing that through