Good And Evil In To Kill A Mockingbird

“Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” Harper Lee’s literary classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, told in the perspective of young Scout Finch and set in the quiet, white-dominated town of Maycomb, Alabama during the pre-World II period, primarily explores social and racial constructs, the concepts of good and evil, and maturing during a precarious time period. Most importantly, these themes and issues clarify to the reader, the true meaning and implications of the book’s title regarding the mockingbird motif. The final chapters of the To Kill a Mockingbird succeed in elucidating and uniting the significant issues of good and evil, growing up, and the mockingbird motif into

Part One of the To Kill a Mockingbird primarily focuses on the early childhoods of Jem and Scout before Tom Robinson’s trial, during which Lee first begins to present the themes of good and evil and coming-of-age, while concurrently introducing the mockingbird motif, which Miss Maudie explains during Atticus’ shooting of Tom Johnson, the rabid dog, “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 skin to kill a mockingbird” (103). Scout and Jem’s childish attempts at forcing Boo Radley, the Finch’s reclusive neighbor, to come out of his home, emerges as a dominant part of their naïve, pre-trial childhood. In Part Two of To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson’s trial becomes the primary issue, as Scout and Jem, in contrast to the lighter,

Following the events of Chapter 28, Scout attempts to recount the life-threatening experience she had, during which Bob Ewell had made a claim on Scout and Jem’s lives, and Boo Radley showed up as their savior. It becomes clear to Atticus and Sheriff Heck Tate that Boo Radley had killed Bob Ewell, despite Heck Tate’s repeated argument that Bob Ewell had simply fallen on his own knife, “I may not be much, Mr. Finch, but I’m still sheriff of Maycomb County and Bob Ewell fell on his knife. Good night, sir” (317). While it may seem to the reader that Atticus suspects Jem to have killed Bob Ewell, Heck Tate’s adamancy on the fact that Bob Ewell fell on his on knife, hints that he may have an ulterior motive of protecting Boo Radley. Ultimately the blame for Bob Ewell’s death does not fall on Boo Radley, but Scout’s understanding of the matter extends the major themes of growing up and of the mockingbird motif, “’Mr. Tate was right.’ . . . ‘Well, it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?’” (317). Scout has matured enough to have the capability to comprehend the gravity behind the dispute between Atticus and Mr. Tate over Bob Ewell’s death. Arresting Boo Radley and bringing him into the limelight would serve no purpose, as Boo Radley would not be found guilty since he had saved the children from Bob Ewell,