How Does Lee Use Symbols In To Kill A Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird Essay

Harper Lee is a famous writer who wrote a book called To Kill a Mockingbird. In this book Lee uses symbolism. Symbolism us a literary device where the author uses objects to stand for ideas. Her most famous one is the mockingbird, to stand for innocence. Lee uses Scout Finch, Tom Robinson, And Boo Radley as mockingbirds. First, Scout is used as a mockingbird. Scout is the daughter of Atticus Finch, a really good lawyer who is defending a black man which is considered “breaking the code” of maycomb county. She is a sassy little girl who likes to hang out with her brother and a boy named Dill who she says is going to be her husband. Scout is a mockingbird because people tell her that her dad is a negro lover,

Tom is a black man who has a wife and kids and he does chores for Mayella Ewell because he feels bad for her and the fact that her dad was raping her and that some of her siblings are actually her children. When he wouldn’t kiss her back she lied and said that he raped her and beat her up. Tom is a mockingbird because he is a black man on trial for raping a white woman. He was obviously innocent but he was a black man before an all white jury so he was still found guilty. Tom Robinson was savagely shot during exercise time outside by a tower guard at the jail who says that Tom tried to run and jump the fence. Atticus says “seventeen bullet holes in him, they didn’t have to shoot him that much” (351). Tom was really shot because he was black, and he was wrongfully convicted for raping Mayella Ewell even though the jury knew he was innocent. All because Mayella fell in love with Tom and her dad found out. So she thought she was forced to lie about what happened and because of that an innocent man was

The kids claimed he was a monster because he never came outside and by the stories that they heard, He was the one who left gifts in the big tree outside their Radley house for Jem and Scout. He saves Jem and Scout from the attack by Bob Ewell. Jem says “Boo Radley doesn’t mean anybody any harm, but i’m glad you’re along” (341). He said this because Scout said the Radley house was scary. Boo Radley was locked in a basement, and outside under the porch outside because when he was younger he used to sit under the table and try to cut his family with scissors. So they were scared of him but really he was just scared. At the end of the book he ends up stabbing Bob Ewell to save the kids and carries Jem home and Scout finds out that Boo wasn’t a monster but is really a nice man who is cognitively impaired and has the mind of a child. And he didn’t come outside because he was scared of the sun and was scared of other