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Character Analysis Of Tom Robinson In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

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People hurt others to make themselves seem powerful but never think about how their actions affect other people. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Lee uses two important characters, Boo Radley and Tom Robinson, to represent how it is a sin to kill a Mockingbird. To Kill A Mockingbird is about two kids, Jem Finch and Scout Finch, who has a neighbor, Boo Radley, that is stereotyped as creepy lunatic. Their father, Atticus Finch, has to defend a negro, Tom Robinson, who was accused of rape, and a man named Bob Ewell is angry that Atticus is protecting Tom Robinson because Atticus is protecting the negro who has been accused to have raped Bob’s daughter, Mayella Ewell. As a guilty man, Tom Robinson goes to jail and dies of seventeen gunshot wounds. Bob …show more content…

After the trial, Atticus was explaining to Uncle Jack, “The only thing we’ve got is a black man’s word against the Ewells’... The jury couldn’t possibly be expected to take Tom Robinson’s word against the Ewells’” (116-117). Atticus believes that though the evidence proves Tom Robinson is innocent but because he is an African-American he would not win the case. While Tom Robinson was on the stand, he responded to a question with, “No suh, not after she offered me a nickel the first time. I was glad to do it, Mr. Ewell didn’t seem to help her none, and neither did the chillun, and I knowed she didn’t have no nickels to spare” (256). Tom Robinson was only trying to help out because Mayella Ewell had no one to help her with the work, and he thought that she needed some help. When Atticus was describing the news of Tom’s death, he said, “Seventeen bullet holes in him. They didn’t have to shoot him that much… What was one Negro, more or less, among two hundred of ‘em? He wasn’t Tom to them, he was an escaping prisoner” (315). The guards didn’t treat Tom like a human being he lost all of his sanity and tried to escape, but the guards shot him an unnecessary amount of times. Tom Robinson was referenced as a mockingbird because he was accused guilty of a crime that he did not

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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

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I can prove this by quoting, "When they shoot Tom Robinson , while lost in his unavailing effort to scale the wall in quest, Mr. Underwood, the editor of The Montgomery Advertiser, likened Tom 's death to the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children '(Dave 50). This quote explains how Tom Robinson is an example of a Mockingbird. Another example of how Tom Robinson is a symbol of a mockingbird is stated here, "There 's a black boy dead for no reason, and the man responsible for it is dead. Let the dead bury the dead this time, Mr. Finch. Let the dead bury the dead"(Lee 369).

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