How Does Lee Use Foreshadowing In To Kill A Mockingbird

“Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.” (Lee). The novel To Kill A Mockingbird was written by Harper Lee and was written in the 1960s. This book takes place during the 1930s in a small town called Maycomb, Alabama. This novel follows a young white girl's perspective on her father, defending a black man in court, while a larger story unfolds. Foreshadowing is when you use events, people, or irregular changes to hint that something big is happening. In her novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee notably uses the symbolism of Mad dog, Snow, and the White Camellia flower to foreshadow events to transpire later in the novel. To begin, Lee uses Mad Dog to foreshadow the death of Tom Robinson and the way he died.

Scout narrates, “The rifle cracked. Tim Johnson leaped, flopped over and crumpled on the sidewalk in a brown-and-white heap. He didn’t know what hit him” (Lee 127). Passing time, Atticus and Tom Robinson went to court and lost the case. Tom Robinson is the black man that Atticus Finch is defending in court. Accused of a rape that never happened, Tom was wrongfully sent to jail. After losing the case Tom Robinson is wrongfully sent to jail since it was technically proved in court that he could not have committed the rape, as he is crippled and cannot use his left arm whatsoever. Atticus says, “They fired a few shots in the air, then killed. They got him just as he went over the fence. Seventeen bullet holes in him. They didn’t have to shoot him that much” (Lee 315). Mad Dog’s death foreshadows the wrongful death of Tom Robinson because they were both shot with guns. Along with their deaths being the same, they both were different. Mad dog was a dog that had rabies and Tom was