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To Kill A Mockingbird Innocence Analysis

811 Words4 Pages

“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy… That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (Lee 119). Innocence is just like a mockingbird, it is robbed away from children who have done nothing wrong. The novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee takes place in the 1930s during the Great Depression, in a small-sized town called Maycomb in Alabama. Jem Finch and Dill Harris are young children that have to experience and see new things as they grow up and in the process lost some of their innocence. However, Scout Jem’s little sister is the only one that keeps her innocence throughout the novel. Harper Lee uses a mockingbird to represent innocence and demonstrates how the adult stole the innocence away from Dill, Jem, and Scout by showing them the reality of this cruel world, but should be protected for as long as possible. As Jem grows up, his innocence is taken away when he realizes that not everyone in Maycomb is as they seem. One of the first times he notices this is during Tom Robinson’s trial. Jem sees that the judicial system is biased because all the facts stated that Tom was clearly innocent but the jury voted him as guilty. This vote opens Jem’s eyes to how cruel people can be, and that people in Maycomb are not as they seem. They knowingly convicted an innocent …show more content…

Jem and Dill have come to the age in the novel where they realize that the world is not perfect while Scout is still naive and thinks the world is a good place filled with only good people. Innocence is normally lost as a child comes to age because they see the suffering and evil in this world. The loss of innocence can also be found in real life; kids are exposed to these horrific aspects of life at an early age hence we must try to preserve their innocence by removing racism and corruption from

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170 Words | 1 Pages

To kill a mockingbird is to destroy innocence. Mockingbirds do not cause harm or trouble; in fact their only purpose is to convince others with beautiful music. Tom Robinson’s death can easily be compared to that of a mockingbird; it did no good but also prevented no evil. Mr. Underwood chooses to write an article that basically every citizen of Maycomb can understand, and this proves to the reader the obvious connection between Tom Robinson and the symbol of a mockingbird. Mr. Underwood chooses to ignore the prominent racial barrier that separated Tom Robinson from justice, and chooses to focus on his disability instead.

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795 Words | 4 Pages

“I’ve always been fascinated with the stealing of innocence. It’s the most heinous crime, and certainly a capital crime if there ever was one. ”(Clint Eastwood) In the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, this quote reigns true for many reasons. The book starts as a family and friend oriented community, but its true colors show when Atticus Finch takes on a black mans trial.

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646 Words | 3 Pages

'Guilty...guilty...guilty...guilty...' I peeked at Jem: his hands were white from gripping the balcony rail, and his shoulders jerked as if each "guilty" was a separate stab between them… (Lee 211). Jem and Scout Finch from the book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Arnold Spirit (Junior) from The Absolutely True Diary by Sherman Alexie all show that innocence is lost when compassion is found. In To Kill A Mockingbird, both Jem and Scout show innocence.

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811 Words | 4 Pages

In To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, Jem grows from a little boy to an intelligent young man. Throughout the book, he discerns many things that shape his personality. As Jem grows, he learns how bad society is and that not everyone is perfect. Fortunately for Jem, this ends up helping him and he finds out that Atticus is a hero and that he should look up to Atticus. Through Atticus and the trial, Jem loses his innocence by learning about prejudice, bravery, and that the justice system is crippled.

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219 Words | 1 Pages

In To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Scout matures throughout the book as she matures her innocent nature is gradually lost and she realizes how senseless and brutal people can be. In the beginning she has still not seen any of the bad things people do in the world. Her innocence at is first shown when Dill asks Scout to marry him because they don’t now what marriage really is they both go along with it and say that they are married from then on. Another example of Scout’s innocence is when after she goes to school and gets in trouble she comes home and tells Atticus that she does not want to go to school anymore. She says that Burris Ewell only comes one day then goes home lie it would be a good thing to be a Ewell because you would not

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844 Words | 4 Pages

The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is about two kids, Jem and Scout, and their childhood in their small town Maycomb, Alabama. In the beginning of the novel, Jem and Scout were two innocent kids playing in the summer sun, until school came along. Jem was about twelve throughout the novel and Scout was eight, and considering that Jem was twelve in the novel, he was changing. During the middle of the novel a rape trial occurred, which included a black man being accused by a white woman of first-degree rape. Atticus, the kid’s father was defending the african american man; Tom Robinson.

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675 Words | 3 Pages

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird shows how Jem, Scout and Boo overcome their loss of innocence and overcome the struggles that Maycomb county and its people throw at them. While Jem, Scout, are just rudimentary kids they face some real world problems and they witness some of the harsh ways people did things but witnessing those things and hearing all the judgemental people is also a detriment to their innocence.

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798 Words | 4 Pages

“Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (Lee 119). In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Atticus Finch and his children Scout and Jem live in the prejudice town of Maycomb, Alabama. In the town they have many misconceptions of things such as Boo Radley, who has not been seen out of his house for fifteen years ever since he was caught causing a disturbance but the children soon figure out what really occurred after he got into trouble. As the story progresses Atticus accepts the request to defend a colored man named Tom Robinson which affects his family in multiple ways. The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee uses characterization to show how in the process of growing up children

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1045 Words | 5 Pages

It is at this moment that Jem and Scout realize that as much as they want the world to be fair, it is never going to be in favor of them. The morals in Maycomb, no matter how unfair and biased they may be, will not change as the racism and prejudice present in the novel have been in Maycomb for as long as the people living there can remember. This incident is another example of a lesson learned for both Jem and Scout as they see that life is not always perfect, but they have to make out of it what they

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1405 Words | 6 Pages

Innocence is a time in one’s life of carefreeness and peace. In youth, children have yet to experience the harsh realities of life, and when they do, it is often hard to cope with. In her novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee portrays Maycomb’s prejudiced ways through an unfair trial of an innocent man, and through the treatment of certain members of the community. The young narrator, Scout, and her older brother, Jem, experience growth and learn compassion when the trial exacerbates Maycomb’s intense intolerance. In this novel, Lee uses the characterization of the Finch children to demonstrate that innocent children who have been exposed to their community’s prejudice, often have trouble adjusting, but need a mentor figure to help them mature.

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715 Words | 3 Pages

To Kill a Mockingbird has many of underlying themes such as racism, courage, respect, femininity, etc. But the theme that fits this book most appropriately is innocence and the harm caused to the innocent by evil and bigotry. Examples of this include Jem, Dill, Tom Robinson, Boo Radley. While all these characters have completely different personalities and circumstances they all have one thing in common. All of them were innocent at one point and were harmed by the evil of

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750 Words | 3 Pages

Have you ever wondered which event in your life made you see everything differently? Everybody faces various experiences with the realities of the world that eventually results in the loss of their innocence. The loss of innocence can be the outcome of an incident witnessed, a final conclusion about an issue, or an understanding of a situation. The loss of innocence is the same thing as maturity. Now, of course, you can’t go to sleep one night and wake up mature.

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852 Words | 4 Pages

Persecution comes from people who are prejudiced” (Lee 329). While this may seem like a useful life lesson, Scout realizes the clear hypocrisy in her lesson. Like every other citizen of Maycomb, she is prejudiced against black people. Even though she is teaching her students that prejudice and persecution is wrong, she is participating in those very activities at home. She heard her third grade teacher after Tom Robinson’s trial, she thought “it’s time somebody taught ‘em a lesson, they were gettin’ way above themselves, an’ the next thing they think they can do is marry us” (Lee 331).

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1019 Words | 5 Pages

Being the older sibling, Jem realizes the long-held values of Maycomb, but only as he matures does he understand what it means to have moral integrity. There are many times in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee in which the reader can see Jem’s maturity and his moral values. The first time Jem starts to understand moral integrity is when he is forced to read to Mrs. Dubose. After her death, Atticus explains just how much she was going through, and this information had a great impact on Jem. Jem furthers his knowledge of moral integrity during the trial.

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1037 Words | 5 Pages

To Kill a Mockingbird is a story that takes place during the Great Depression in a small town located in southern Georgia in the 1930s. The book focuses on Jean Louise “Scout” and Jeremy Atticus “Jem” and their coming of age and the major events that made the two grow up. One of the events was the trial of the Mockingbird, Tom Robinson, in which their father, Atticus Finch, was defending Tom, a man of color. Mockingbirds are used throughout the book to represent people that were harmed by the society even though they were innocent. There is a common misinterpretation of the meaning behind the Mockingbird leading many to believe that Scout is the Mockingbird in the story.

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