Being kind and running is all this man is guilty of and he ended up dead by the hands of the ones that were trusted to keep him alive till he was acquitted. After the trial Tom was sent off and once everything was going back into place Atticus was told grave news “Tom’s dead… he was running… seventeen bullet holes in him” (Lee 315). Tom was put in jail and then he ran during their exercise time and when he had two arms over the wall they shot with an obsessive amount killing him. Once news spread to Maycomb everyone knew that an innocent black male was killed and all he did was try to get away from a crime he didn’t commit. “ Well it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it” ( Lee 370). Scout said this when she made the connection that the killing of an innocent man is the same as killing an innocent bird that only purpose was to sing and make the world better like how Tom helped Mayella making life better for her. All that Tom did was be a kind and honest man who wanted to help a white women out of the kindness of his heart and he gets convicted for the crime of not staying in the social normality of blacks being the ones pitied by the whites. Through the killing of a wrongfully convicted man the innocence with in the kids died alongside him, Tom the black man who did no …show more content…
The first time Scout heard her father say anything was a sin was “It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird… Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy” (Lee 119). Mockingbird don’t harm anything not gardens or other animals they just sing, this is why it’s a sin. Why kill something that never harmed anything, there is no rhyme or reason with the harming of an innocent thing. There are a plethora of saying that basically state do what you want done to you, or of how if you do good you will receive good. If those are true then why would a bird or person who did nothing wrong have wrong done to them? The world is cruel but most would agree that it would be a sin to harm something that never harmed you Jem talks about this when Scout wants to smash the “ Why couldn't i mash him ? … Because they don't bother you”(Lee 320). This was after the trial and Jem finally understood the problem with killing something that never harmed a single hair on anyone’s head. Tom’s conviction and death were eye opening for Jem and Scout didn’t really understand at the time but it also affected her because now she notices how racist her town is. The three main Finches, Jem, Atticus, and Scout will all say Tom's death is exactly like killing a mockingbird, he did no wrong and neither did the bug Scout was going to smash.