To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird is a book with several themes, one of which is in the title itself. On page 93, Miss Maudie says, “[Mockingbirds] don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” She is saying that killing a mockingbird is a sin because mockingbirds don’t cause any harm to anyone. The same could be said about several characters in the book, such as Boo Radley, Tom Robinson, and Dolphus Raymond.

One of the ‘mockingbirds’ in this book is Tom Robinson. Bob Ewell falsely accused him of raping his daughter, Mayella. Tom Robinson never actually did so, so he is a symbolic ‘mockingbird’, being hurt even though he did nothing. He was

Boo Radley always stayed inside his house, and the people in Maycomb,especially Scout and Jem, made several rumors about him, such as ‘eating squirrels raw’, and ‘killing his family with scissors’. These are false, and he stays in just because he doesn’t want to go out. He later saves Jem and Scout from an actual psychopathic murderer. On page 9, it says, “Inside the house lived a malevolent phantom. People said he existed, but Jem and I had never seen him. People said [Boo Radley] went out at night when the moon was down, and peeped in the windows. Any stealthy small crimes committed in Maycomb were his work” People are judging Boo Radley just because he doesn’t come out of his house. He is being blamed for crimes committed at night, and stalking locals. Nobody has a shred of evidence to prove this, and yet he’s being judged for just being who he is. In actuality, Boo Radley is a kind person, willing to risk his own life to save Scout Jem’s. On page 278, Heck Tate says, “I’m not sayin‘ she made it up, I’m sayin’ she was too scared to know exactly what happened. It was mighty dark out there, black as ink. ‘d take somebody mighty used to the dark to make a competent witness.” He’s hinting that Boo Radley, who was accustomed to the dark, was there at the murder, quite possibly the one who did kill Bob Ewell to save Scout and Jem’s life. This completely goes against what the people of Maycomb thought about Boo Radley, and sketchy