To Kill a Mockingbird: the price of prejudice

Lee suggests that the need to learn about true nature of courage is vital to complete the journey from childhood to adulthood because this is how people learn to cope with life’s challenges.               Courage is the key theme all throughout part one of this book. It is described to us through Atticus defending Tom Robinson in court, Mrs Dubose giving up her morphine addiction, Miss Maudie’s house burning down and Dill running away from his parents to find happiness. All of these are examples of true courage. This is Mrs Duboses courage journey in more detail :                         Lee suggests that it takes true courage to give up an addiction. This is shown through the eyes of Mrs Dubose when she gives up her morphine addiction and ends up dying because of it. “She took it as a pain-killer for years. The doctor put her on it. She’d have spent the rest of her life on it and died without so much agony, but she was too contrary -”. This illustrates how much courage Mrs Dubose has to able quit something so addictive.                                                                                                                             

‘I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mocking bird.’

The message that Harper Lee is trying to get across through this quote (page 99, chapter 10) is that when Atticus says ‘,but remember it’s a sin to kill a mocking bird.’ she is actually really referring to Tom Robinson as being the mockingbird. What Harper Lee is meaning here is that you are killing an innocent man that has done nothing to you and this is exactly the same as killing a mocking bird. Tom Robinson is an innocent man that is being sent to jail for doing something that only the public think he did because he is a black man. Everything he did was an act of kindness. He was always a gentle and kind man. So  Harper Lee has explained this to us but just by using a mockingbird as a replacement of him instead. ‘Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat peoples gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why its a sin to kill a mockingbird.’

Harper Lee has cleverly written To Kill a Mockingbird in first person. I believe her purpose in doing this was so we (the reader) go on a journey with Scout, exactly as she would have felt when she was there. The first person subjectiveness gives the reader a completely different perspective on what is happening unlike if it was written in third person, or even from another character’s perspective. Scout is young and has a great deal of naivety which is expressed through her responses to the surroundings and the things that happen. This is evident after Scout and Jem find out about their dad defending Tom Robinson. Jem tells scout that if Atticus “was proud of it, he’da told us,” and Scout replies saying “Maybe it just slipped his mind.” It shows Scout’s lack of understanding and that she isn’t old enough to realise the consequences of the upcoming events. Something Jem himself outlines by responding with “Naw, Scout, it’s something you wouldn’t understand.” It also shows the way in which Jem is maturing and learning about what is happening with his dad and why his dad is defending Tom Robinson even though they are being scrutinised for it.

In the novel the complications only start to come in through chapter 9 and onwards, where they begin to talk about Atticus defending a Negro in court. In this scene we see that Scout is having a hard time at school because she is hearing so much about her father that she does not know what to believe.  “He had announced in the school yard the day before that Scout Finch’s daddy defended Niggers” (Page 82 5 lines from the bottom). All this talk at school is causing chaos between Scout and Cecil Jacobs. Also in this scene we see the childish play of the adults in Maycomb. We see this from what their children are saying at school, from the way that they talk about Negro. That their children are talking what they say about Negros and telling younger kids at school.  This helps to convey the fact that the people of Maycomb do not treat niggers the way they should, they don’t treat them like humans, but as something from another planet. Throughout this scene Scout still seems really childish from the way she talk to her father “Well if you don’t want me to grow up talkin’ that way, why do you send me to school?”. In this we can see the childishness in her, because she knows why she gets sent to school and she knows that she has to go to school.

The novel of to kill a mocking bird written by Harper Lee is based on the life and experiences of her own life. This book clearly means a lot to her as it is the only novel she has published she has put a lot into it. I feel as though it is a way of her expressing her feelings and overview of her life and then added a few more things and interesting aspects. The things that make it so special are that she has wrote it as a rare piece of work which turned into an award winning novel selling over 30,000,000 novels. The main theme of the novel is racism as is everything about it has been surrounded by the aspect of racism. The way that Atticus, the father of the two children handles the situation as it becomes a very controversial subject in their household. I found it very noble of him that he respects every single person in their neighbourhood and community including people of colour. As well as the way he sets such a good example to his children. An example of this is where scout comes home from school asking ‘Do you defend niggers, Atticus?’ referring to Atticus’ case on Tom Robinson. Atticus replies to her saying that she shall not call them niggers and to call them less ‘common’ and fair. This shows a great deal of Atticus’ leadership and responsibility.

To Kill a Mockingbird is based around the idea of prejudice. Prejudice is an issue that has affected the world throughout time and stems from a lack of understanding and a refusal to accept people for who they are. Prejudice comes in many forms from the smallest school yard insult to Hitler’s holocaust in World War 2. Atticus’ support of Tom Robinson throughout the book is misunderstood by the people of Maycomb. Jem and Scout suffered a great deal because of it but they were willing to fight because they knew their father was doing the right thing and believed in giving Tom the Justice he deserved. The school children called them “nigga-lovers” an extremely derogatory term which portrays the ignorance of those children and further their parents. Children don’t come up with these things on their own, they merely repeat what they hear at home. So it is a great emphasis on the ignorance of the adults in Maycomb, and that this idea of black vs. White is so ingrained into their lives. Standing up for what you believe is right can be much tougher than simply stating an opinion. It takes courage, and in a society where blacks were not accepted or equals with white, to stand up and support a man who has been accused of rape shows courage and integrity. I believe that had I been in the same situation as Atticus I may not have had the same courage to go against what was the ideology of that time.