To Kill A Mockingbird Symbolism

“Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story.”(synopsis). The love shown throughout To Kill a Mockingbird is the generosity and gentleness towards the Mockingbird. The Mockingbird is a motif, which represents innocence of the characters in the novel. At first, the mockingbirds seems as just a plain bird, however, the motif develops a greater symbol and impact in the novel.

In the first appearance, just after Christmas, Jem and Scout just received rifles for a present, and their father Atticus was giving them a talk about them. “Shoot all the blue jays you want if you can hit’em but remember it is a sin to kill a mockingbird.”(chapter 10). Mrs. Maudie said that the mockingbird is so said “innocent”. The mockingbird does nothing bust sing songs for the joy and happiness of other people. By hurting this bird it would be sin because it had done nothing wrong, you would just be hurting an innocent.

Listen.” High above us in the darkness a solitary mocker poured out his repertoire in blissful unawareness of whose tree he sat in, plunging from the shrill kee, kee of the sunflower bird to the irascible qua-ack of a bluejay, to the sad lament of Poor Will, Poor Will, Poor Will.”(chapter 28). The solitary mocker is the mockingbird in this specific scene, it sits in the tree of Boo Radley. The mockingbird sings a song unaware of the danger it is in. Just as Jem and Scout were unaware of the danger they were in with Bob Ewell closely creeping in the dark. The mockingbird represents Jem and Scout, how they are innocent in this scene and unaware of danger, as the bird is. In chapter 10, it is just a bird, a myth, that killing a mockingbird is a sin. However, in this chapter it symbolized Jem and Scout, and how they represent innocence in the