To Kill A Mockingbird Themes

“It’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn’t hurt you.” In Harper's compelling story, To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem and Scout grow in a world full of countless injustices going on around them and they still need to stay strong to what their father has taught them. The three most important themes in To Kill A Mockingbird are an Illusion of Power, Good versus Bad and Growing up.

In the 1930’s and still now white people act ignorantly in the knowledge that black and white people are equal. White people believe that they are better than black people and have a false illusion that they should more power than them. Most white men in this story follow the lead of everyone

“In our courts, when it's a white man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins”(Lee 23. Mr. Ewell is believed over Tom Robinson, even though all evidence leads to him being guilty because the jury believes that white men will always tell the truth over a black man. The court is supposed to be colorblind, but since there is the impression that black people are lesser in order of power, this statement is untrue. Negroes are thought to have the power of a nobody, not being allowed to vote on who their own president will be making important decisions that affect them. This is a mirage, a fake image that is thought of in the mind to be true but is not. Black people are addressed as boy or girl, meaning a dog or something that is not worth the respect of a human. Scout is living in a time when men are thought to be more powerful and women are thought to be the weak ones who day dream endlessly. Scout is faced with the fact that no one approves of the way she acts, always caked in dirt and wearing her favorite overalls. “I was not so sure, but Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that's why other people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one I could just go off

Jem grows up playing with Dill and Scout in the dirt and trying to think up schemes to lure Boo Radley out. Once he gets older he separates off from the three of them and becomes more mature and less fun to Scout and Dill. ”Dill's eyes flickered at Jem, and Jem looked at the floor. Then he rose and broke the remaining code of our childhood. He went out of the room and down the hall. "Atticus," his voice was distant, "can you come here a minute, sir?( Lee 32). Jem learns quicker than the others that they can't hide Dill under the bed and also that they need to listen to their Aunt. He has to be the bigger person and tell the other kids to listen and they believe that he is becoming an old grouch, though he is really just growing up and learning how to be an adult faster than the others. The reason for this is because he sees the problems that are going on and understands them more than the other children do. Everything goes over their small heads and he has to be the one affected by certain things. Scout who has always been the ill tempered and quick to act without thinking, finally starts to grow up. “After all, if Aunty could be a lady at a time like this, so could I”(Lee 318). Scout has never been the one to listen to what her Aunt tells her to do or be the one to act sensibly, but now she has just changed and matured. She