I believe the meaning of the title “To Kill a Mockingbird” is more like a title “To kill something innocent” with a mockingbird being an innocent person. I believe this is the meaning of the title because the theme of the book centers around innocence and unfairness in the world. Multiple scenes in this book focus on Scout Finch, who as a child, is still innocent and thinks and describes moments as unfair due to them being unfair. She is the only one that still clearly sees this due to her young age as most others are already shrouded in selfishness and emotions. This theme of innocence mostly applies to Scout, and also because she is still at a young age, an age before most become engulfed in the feelings of selfishness and overwhelmed by their emotions. For example, as shown in the trial with Tom Robinson, he was an innocent man accused of rape and inevitably got killed mostly due to the fact that he was black. Scout notices this and states how unfair she thinks it is and Atticus responds by telling her that “as you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it -- whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.” (295) This trial shows Scout a vision of what the real world looks like and it takes her by surprise by how unfair it is because she always assumed that the world is a very fair and
