To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee :: To Kill a Mockingbird Essays

At the beginning of the novel, observation tower is an innocent, good-heartedfive-year-old child who has no experience with the unrighteouss of the world.As the novel progresses, Scout has her first contact with evil in theform of racial prejudice, and the basic development of her characteris governed by the question of whether she will come to the fore from thatcontact with her conscience and optimism intact or whether she will bebruised, hurt, or destroyed like Boo Radley and Tom Robinson. Thanksto Atticuss wisdom, Scout learns that though liberality has a greatcapacity for evil, it also has a great capacity for good, and that theevil can often be mitigated if one approaches others with an outlookof discernment and understanding.When he agrees to defend Tom Robinson, a black man charged with rapinga white woman, he exposes himself and his family to the anger of thewhite community.Arthur Boo Radley - A solitary confinement who never sets foot outside his house,Boo dominates th e imaginations of Jem, Scout, and Dill. He is apowerful symbol of goodness swathed in an initial shroud ofcreepiness, leaving little presents for Scout and Jem and emerging atan opportune moment to save the children. An intelligent childemotionally damaged by his cruel father, Boo provides an example ofthe threat that evil poses to innocence and goodness. He is one of thenovels mockingbirds, a good person injured by the evil of mankind.Bob Ewell - A drunken, permanently unemployed member of Maycombspoorest family. In his knowingly wrongful accusation that Tom Robinsonraped his daughter, Ewell represents the dark side of the Southignorance, poverty, squalor, and hate-filled racial prejudice.One of the books important subthemes involves the threat that hatred,prejudice, and ignorance pose to the innocent spate such as TomRobinson and Boo Radley are not prepared for the evil that theyencounter, and, as a result, they are destroyed.The relatively well-off Finches stand approximative t he top of Maycombs socialhierarchy, with most of the townspeople beneath them. Ignorant countryfarmers like the Cunninghams lie below the townspeople, and the whitetrash Ewells rest below the Cunninghams. notwithstanding the black community inMaycomb, despite its abundance of admirable qualities, squats beloweven the Ewells, enabling Bob Ewell to make up for his own lack of splendour by persecuting Tom Robinson. These rigid social divisionsthat make up so much of the adult world are revealed in the book to be twain irrational and destructive.Mockingbird - The title of To Kill a Mockingbird has very littleliteral connection to the plot, but it carries a great deal of