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To Kill A Mockingbird Theme Essay

715 Words3 Pages

To Kill a Mockingbird is a book mainly about the coexistence of good and evil. The book stresses and emphasizes on the exploration of moral nature in humans. There are many themes in this novel including courage, innocence, racism, femininity, etc. However the most prevalent theme in the book is innocence. Not just innocence in itself but the danger and harm evil poses to the innocent. You can see in the book as Jem and Scout go from a childish perspective, one that only sees good in people because they’ve never faced evil. To a more adult perspective who have confronted evil and learn to integrate it into their world.
The first example of this is Boo Radley. Boo is a mockingbird. Mockingbirds in this novel refer to people who are innocent …show more content…

The next example of the theme of innocence is yet another mockingbird Jem. Jem’s innocence is a childish one. Although it can be argued that he is not a mockingbird there are also telltale signs that he is. Jem starts out in the book as a child he views the people of Maycomb as all being naturally good. Textual evidence that supports this is "it 's like being a caterpillar in a cocoon, that 's what it is," he said. "Like something ' asleep wrapped up in a warm place. I always thought Maycomb folks were the best folks in the world, least that 's what they seemed like." this evidence shows that Jem before the trial saw everyone is good but after all the persecution his family got during the Tom Robinson trial he is forced to look at the people of Maycomb as what they truly are and not all of them are good like he thought. Although Jem does not physically die the child inside of him does.
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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