The Theme Of Fear In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

Fear is defined as an emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, but that belief is not always accurate or realistic. Scout, her brother Jem and friend Dill seek out their loner neighbor Arthur “Boo” Radley by sneaking into his yard to impress each other. However, through the experience of watching the trial of innnocet black man Tom Robinson, they realize that what they really need to be scared of is the racism plagueing their town. The theme of fear develops from the children’s childish fear of Arthur “Boo” Radley to the realistic fear of racism and prejudice in their own town throughout the novel when the children witness the court case and start to see Boo in better lighting. The theme of fear is represented in

Prior to this scene in the small courtroom of Maycomb, Alabama, narrator Scout ran into the middle of a mob of angry middle aged men. She threw both herself, her brother Jem, friend Dill, and father Atticus into a state of fear and danger. Scout is now in a relatively safe and enclosed courtroom where this type of dangerous situation could no longer take place. “Gone was the terror in my mind of stale whiskey and barnyard smells, of sleepy eyed sullen men, of a husky voice calling in the night, “Mr. Finch? They gone?”. Our nightmare had gone with daylight, everything would come out all right.” (Lee 193). Darkness and night are often associated with evil, and something to be scared of. This is one of the reasons why Scout’s fears of the mob of angry men evaporate in the daylight, where this darkness and shadows are no longer present. Another reason why Scout is no longer afraid of the mob is that she is now in a courtroom with many people, the sheriff, and other adults that could protect from any danger, and could restrain these men if they decided to attack her. Scout carries with her the irrational fear of darkness, like many others like her, causing her rational fears of an angry mob to disappear in daylight where she is comforted by her now safe

The three children; narrator Scout, her brother Jem, and friend Dill observe the courtcase unfold from the stands above the floor. When the obviously innocent black man on trial, Tom Robinson, loses his case because of a biased and racist group of white men, Dill is sickened and scared of what cause them to do this; racism. He is terrified of the affects that racism have on his town, his life, and the lives of others. “Dill exhaled patiently, “I know all that, Scout. It was the way he said it made me sick.’” (Lee 226). Dill, at the young age of about eight understands racism, and it makes him sick. This presence of racism in his life and in his town also scares him because he sees people he formerly thought to be good people acting cruelly out of racism. This makes him both more mature and a better person than many of the people, even adults, in his small town of Maycomb, Alabama. This shows that he is pure of heart, unlike his cruel and racist neighbors and the people that live in the same town as him. The fact that Dill is sickened and frightened by the racism prominent in his town shows that he is antiracist, and not just that he will not be racist but that he will stand up against it. Fear is very prominent in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird when Dill is sickened and terrified of the diease most prominent in his town;