The Significance Of The Trial In To Kill A Mockingbird

Great Essays
The first of the last section of this book is the falling action, after the trial is finished. The readers see how Maycomb reacts to Tom’s conviction. Jem is devastated, He was angry at the jury for convicting Tom, even though he was innocent. Mr. Ewell was vexed, because, as Atticus said, “‘I destroyed his last shred of credibility at that trial, if he had any to begin with.’” (pg.250). Although Mr. Ewell won the case, he was humiliated by Atticus. Tom, and most of the black community foresaw that there was no chance of winning, but were still disheartened. It was known they had been upset during the luncheon, when Scout overheard Miss Merriweather complain about her maid, “‘Gertrude, I tell you there’s nothing more distracting than a sulky …show more content…
They’re ugly, but those are the facts of life.’” (pg.252). Both Atticus and the Reverend (from section three, during the trial) explain to Jem, that the world is unfair for black people, and always will be. It is interesting that the book is set in the mid 1930’s, when black people had next to no rights, and were being sentenced even though they were innocent, yet it still relates to the 21st century. The American government and society make it seem that it is in a post-racial age, but this is highly untrue. Atticus foreshadowed that it would take a long time for Jem to ever see equality for black people, if he ever did. It is now 2014, and race is still a large issue, just like Atticus predicted. Even though people of colour are now recognized as equals, they are not treated as equals, and this is proof that the world is unfair, in the fictional and real world. The second theme is the major theme of the book, which is the mockingbird theme. Tom had never done anything wrong, and was only trying to help Mayella Ewell, when she pursued him. He represents the mockingbird, only doing good for people, and Mayella sins by making it …show more content…
They was foreshadowing, irony, allusion, and similes. The first literary device was dramatic irony/foreshadowing. In chapter 23, Aunt Alexandra is extremely worried that Mr. Ewell will try to harm Atticus, or the Finch household, Atticus says, “‘We don’t have anything to fear from Bob Ewell, he got it all out of his system this morning.’” (pg.250). This is ironic, because the opposite happens when Mr. Ewell attacked the children after the pageant. This was also foreshadowing, because Aunt Alexandra predicted that Mr. Ewell would, “‘... do anything to pay off a grudge.’” (pg. 250), and that is exactly what he did. The next literary device was a simile, “Something had made her deeply angry, and her gray eyes were as cold as her voice.” (pg. 267). The context in this is, during the luncheon that Alexandra is hosting, the women are discussing about their black servants and how grumpy they have been acting since Tom`s trial. Miss Maudie quickly ends their remarks with a frigid comment. The meaning behind the simile is that her eyes became hateful, just like the tone of her voice, when she spewed out the comment. The next device was allusion, which occurred twice in the last section. The first time was during the current events scene, in chapter 26. Cecil Jacobs mentions Adolf Hitler, and this alludes to the timeline of the book. Hitler, at the time, was slowly growing his empire as mentioned

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