How Does Harper Lee Use Foreshadowing In To Kill A Mockingbird

In America, is a man truly innocent until proven guilty? Or is a simple innocent and guilty verdict dished out to people based on the color of their skin instead of the content of their character? In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, a 1960 work of fiction loosely based on Harper Lee’s life growing up in the 1930’s, Harper Lee explores racial relations in the South through a harsh coming-of-age story. This novel revolves around Scout, a young girl growing up in 1930s Alabama. As a child, Scout and her brother are obsessed with the ominous figure of Boo Radley, a recluse no one has seen for years. Scout’s family, the Finches, have been in the town of Maycomb for many years, but as Scout’s father, Atticus, decides to defend a black man, their

Harper Lee masterfully articulates symbols to not only convey her message, but also to foreshadow the entire plot. In her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee molds the symbols of the Snow, the Mad Dog, and the Mockingbird to foreshadow specific events. To begin, Harper Lee uses the Snow to foreshadow that a large change is coming, such as the trial. To fully understand the trial, one must understand what leads up to the trial. The trial begins when Atticus decides to defend a black man, Tom Robinson. Tom is accused of raping Mayella Ewell, whose father is Bob Ewell. Throughout the trial, Bob gets exposed for being the person to rape Mayella but racial prejudice in the South eventually wins and Tom is found guilty. Before the trial even happens, Harper Lee introduces the symbol of the Snow to foreshadow this shift in the storyline. Snow is introduced as a rare event that occurs surprisingly often. Scout narrates this when she says, “‘The world’s endin’, Atticus! Please do something!’ I dragged him to the window and pointed. ‘Not, it’s not,’ he

Scout narrates this when she says, “Tom’s dead.’ Aunt Alexandra puts her hands to her mouth. ‘They shot him,’ said Atticus. He was running. It was during their exercise period’... Seventeen bullet holes in him. They didn’t have to shoot him that much” (Lee 315). These lines are Atticus telling everyone that Tom Robinson has been shot trying to escape the prison after his guilty verdict. Harper Lee masterfully maneuvers her way around this topic by directing the reader to call into question the seventeen bullet holes in Tom. These bullet holes connect Tom directly with the Mockingbird because the Mockingbird is innocent and gets shot for no reason and the same thing happens to Tom at the prison. The symbol of the Mockingbird also ties into the all-around theme of the book. Considering the word Mockingbird is in the name, Harper Lee is trying to frame the novel as a story of Tom Robinson, an innocent man (a “Mockingbird”) who gets shot, perfectly matching the title, To Kill a Mockingbird. To conclude this short and sweet analysis of Symbolism in To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee molds the symbols of the Snow, the Mad Dog, and the Mockingbird to foreshadow specific