Loss Of Innocence In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

Harper Lee is an author who is well known for writing To Kill a Mockingbird. The book is based on the Scottsboro boys trial. In the trial innocent black boys were killed only on account of white girls’ testimony. This book takes place in the 1930s in Maycomb County, Alabama. Just like how those boys lost their innocence in fiction, innocence is lost in this novel. In her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses a snowman, white camellias, and fire to foreshadow the loss of innocence. First, Harper Lee uses a snowman to foreshadow the loss of innocence. Two of the main characters Jem and Scout are brother and sister and have their first experience with snow. Being children when they see snow they associate it with a snowman. Scout narrates,”

One morning, Scout was awaken abruptly from her sleep to learn the her neighbor, Miss Maudie’s house was burning down. Scout narrates,”At the front door, we saw fire spewing from Miss Maudie’s windows”(92). This fire was not just a literal fire, but it was also a symbolic fire. This fire affected not just Miss Maudie, but everyone in that neighborhood. After the fire, the smoke passed over the houses of the neighbors. This showed that innocence would be lost all over their neighborhood later on. As the book progresses, Miss Maudie is staying with one of her neighbors, Miss Stephanie. Most of the ladies of the town, including Scout’s Aunt Alexandra attended a missionary circle hosted by the Finches. When these ladies come together they eat food and talk about taking Jesus to Africa. One of the ladies in attendance, Miss Merriweather had a lot to say Christian values and practicing them. Everything she said was sounding good until Scout realized Miss Merriweather felt the total opposite way a Christian should about African-Americans. Scout narrates,” There was something I liked about them, no matter how much they cussed, and drank, and gambled, and chewed...they weren’t-(313). In this quote Scout is talking about how she likes men over women because men aren’t hypocrites. Even though she didn’t know the word, she still knew that something was wrong, and that shows she has lost some

In Jem and Scout neighborhood there is a lady named Mrs. Dubose. Mrs. Dubose is a recovering morphine addict and she usually shouts mean things at the children because of her medical health. Atticus tells the kids not to react to Mrs. Dubose’s insults and just to walk away, but one day things got out of hand. Scout narrates, “ He didn’t begin to calm down until he had cut the tops off every camellia bush Mrs. Dubose owned”(137). Jem destroyed Mrs. Dubose’s camellias because of the mean she was saying about his father. But this was more than just the destruction any flowers, these flowers were white. White is a color that often stands for purity and innocence. Jem destroying these flowers was symbolic of Jem destroying his innocence. Later in the book, there is a very important trial. This trial was one of the most popular things to happen in this town. Tom Robinson, an innocent black man, was the defendant against a white father and daughter Bob and Mayella Ewell. Jem, Scout, and their friend Dill go to the trial and destroy their own innocence there. Scout narrates,” I peeked at Jem: his hands were white from gripping the balcony rail, and his shoulders jerked as if each “guilty” had a separate stab with them”(282). While Jem was at the trial he watched his father Atticus defend Tom Robinson the best that he could. He saw and heard his dad cross-examine every witness and question his own, but