Innocence and the Mockingbird The mockingbird is a very important symbol in the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. In the novel, Jem and Scout are raised by a single father, Atticus, who is also a lawyer. Atticus is given the job of defending a black man, Tom Robinson, in court. Tom is clearly innocent, but because of racial prejudice during the Great Depression, he is proven guilty. Also, Boo Radley, the neighbor of Jem and Scout, kills Bob Ewell, the man who tried to attack Jem and Scout. Even though he killed someone, he is never taken to court. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses the mockingbird to symbolize innocence and all that is good in the small southern town of Maycomb. Harper Lee was born in Monroeville, Alabama on April 26, 1926. She wrote To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960. Harper Lee graduated from the University of Alabama in 1948 and went to Oxford University to study law for a year. After a year in law school, Lee went to New York to get a job as an airline reservation clerk. During her free time during work, she wrote fictitious accounts of events in her childhood. By 2005, To Kill a Mockingbird had sold more than 30 million copies and had been translated into 40 languages. Also, Harper Lee wrote a second novel, Go Set a Watchman, and published it in …show more content…
Atticus says, "I 'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you 'll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it 's a sin to kill a mockingbird" (Lee 98). This shows that mockingbirds are sacred birds that do not do anything to harm or annoy humans. Elizabeth Schmermund says, "The mockingbird symbolizes innocence- an innocence that cannot, and must not, be destroyed.” She also says, "the animals in the book represent larger ideas - such as innocence” (65). The mockingbird symbolizes much bigger ideas such as innocence in the