There are many theme’s exerted in Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, however, the one that stands out the most is social inequality. The novel takes place in the 1930’s, where racism is a big deal in everyone’s lives. The main character in the story is a young girl that goes by the name Scout. She is shown how cruel and unjust the world is. This greatly affects her views on the world, and specifically her town, Maycomb. Harper Lee paints a vivid picture to the readers of how unjust society was to African-Americans during the early parts of the 1900’s. The novel correctly depicts how in society, there can be kind and sympathetic people, but at the same time there can be cruel and cold-blooded monsters. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird,
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Jem started to realize that the gifts left in the knothole were from Boo Radley, so once he looked at it all cemented he got pretty upset. That was his only line of communication with him, and he found it was a good one. On the other hand, Scout doesn’t yet understand the full extent of this situation. In her eye’s she see’s Nathan Radley doing the right thing by filling it up because he knows more about tree’s than she does. This thought comes from her lack of maturity and her thought that the world is all good. This is a clear situation of discrimination on Boo because Nathan clearly wants him to be isolated from the world, and for everyone to completely forget about him. This may come from the fact that as long as there is Boo, Nathan will always be associated with him. The loss of innocence comes along with symbols throughout the story. “‘Your father’s right,’ she said. ‘Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird’”(119). The killing of a mockingbird is the killing of innocence, and that’s why it's considered as a sin. When associated with evil, the innocence of a mockingbird is killed, which is representative of Tom Robinson and Boo Radley. They are two men who have their reputation tarnished when associated with evil. Just like mockingbird’s, both of the men didn’t really do much before associated with crimes. This proves the discrimination towards them because it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird, but in Maycomb, they don’t view harshly treating humans as a sin. Outside of the text, many would view death threats to humans more of a sin than the killing of a mockingbird. This just proves how isolated Maycomb truly is. An important symbol that’s somewhat hidden is the Finch’s last name. A finch is a relatively small
Jem started to realize that the gifts left in the knothole were from Boo Radley, so once he looked at it all cemented he got pretty upset. That was his only line of communication with him, and he found it was a good one. On the other hand, Scout doesn’t yet understand the full extent of this situation. In her eye’s she see’s Nathan Radley doing the right thing by filling it up because he knows more about tree’s than she does. This thought comes from her lack of maturity and her thought that the world is all good. This is a clear situation of discrimination on Boo because Nathan clearly wants him to be isolated from the world, and for everyone to completely forget about him. This may come from the fact that as long as there is Boo, Nathan will always be associated with him. The loss of innocence comes along with symbols throughout the story. “‘Your father’s right,’ she said. ‘Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird’”(119). The killing of a mockingbird is the killing of innocence, and that’s why it's considered as a sin. When associated with evil, the innocence of a mockingbird is killed, which is representative of Tom Robinson and Boo Radley. They are two men who have their reputation tarnished when associated with evil. Just like mockingbird’s, both of the men didn’t really do much before associated with crimes. This proves the discrimination towards them because it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird, but in Maycomb, they don’t view harshly treating humans as a sin. Outside of the text, many would view death threats to humans more of a sin than the killing of a mockingbird. This just proves how isolated Maycomb truly is. An important symbol that’s somewhat hidden is the Finch’s last name. A finch is a relatively small