Literary Analysis Of To Kill A Mockingbird

Lucas Meinberg

McElroy 1st

Gifted/Advanced ELA

March 20th, 2018

Literary Analysis-To Kill a Mockingbird By Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird. A book that details the struggle that was racial discrimination in the 1900’s of Maycomb, Alabama. As the plot unfolds, we see a deeper meaning of what Harper Lee’s true purpose was on writing this book. One also sees certain literary devices being used to tell the story in a more effective way, and the reader can relate these devices to the overall theme of the book.

This book was more than a story of brave characters who did the unthinkable back then. Who defied society(man vs society) and ultimately brought about change. In TKAM, we see the constant theme of change represented everywhere. Even the

Harper Lee wanted to tell a story of a black man who was falsely accused of rape, just because of his race. Throughout the book, we see different literary devices at work. For example, symbolism. Symbolism comes to life in this book. Many symbols can help the reader fully understand the book, such as the well-known symbol of the mockingbird. The mockingbird represents purity, and innocence, we even see one of the characters saying that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird, as they only sing songs to you and do not harm you. The reader can see this symbol in the one and only Mrs. Mayella. Mayella symbolizes the mockingbird because she does not know what she is doing is bad, and she cannot correct her behavior as Mayella is at the mercy of Bob Ewell. In the trial, she is forced to lie her way out of another beating from her father, and Mayella of course lives in a broken world, where she is not treated with respect, so she cannot realize what she is doing is very wrong. The reader also sees a symbol in the Finches. The bird Finch, represents change, and nobility as stated before. Atticus, is the nobility in the family, as he was tasked to defend a black man, which took all of his strength and courage to do at the time. He went up there knowing he was fighting a losing battle, but he kept trying. Jem and Scout, can represent change. One can see both of them change, from immature children who did not know the world around them, to kids who could

Each character in the book was made for a reason. That specific reason was to challenge the thinking and growing minds of the main characters, Jem and Scout. Characters like Mrs. Dubose, who was created just for the sole purpose of to annoy and taunt the main characters into lashing out to her. This provided another dynamic aspect to the plot, as Jem and Scout had to deal with outside people with their own opinions about Atticus and the Tom Robinson trial. Another character presented in the story is Dill. Dill was a character who only came to Maycomb county in the summer, and was often presented as a character who had the same views as the main ones. But, he had a different family than Jem or Scout, and ran away from home. In a way, Dill provides a unique development of the story to further drive the plot along its path. The general tone, which changes throughout the book as certain plot aspects are develop, also help. TKAM is told through the viewpoint of Scout(aka Jean Louise Finch) who presents a different tone to the table if it were told in, for example, Atticus’ POV. The story is probably told in Scout’s perspective because children generally have a lighter, carefree attitude than adults. Scout, was the perfect candidate for a narrator because she was carefree, and had a limited viewpoint on certain issues, which helped the reader