To+Kill+a+Mockingbird

In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, the author, teaches us of the extremities of racism and gossip during the 1930's through the eyes of a little girl. This girl's name is Scout; she had a brother named Jem and a father named Atticus. Atticus is a lawyer, and during the book, he is had to defend a colored man in court. This book is full of assumptions based on gossip, I will now explain to you why these assumptions are wrong.

The man in which Atticus had to defend was named Tom Robinson. Tom was a young colored man who helped women do their chores for free. One time when he was doing some chores for a white woman, he supposedly raped and savagely beat her.But in truth, he did nothing of the sort. In fact, she actually kissed him, her father saw it and went in to beat her. They made up the lie of Tom raping and beating her because they knew they would win in court; because in the 1930's a black man's word was near nothing. "Now don't you be so confident, Mr. Jem, I ain't ever seen any jury decide in favor of a colored man over a white man..." (Pg. 208) This is because apparently white men are superior to colored ones, where in reality, this is untrue. What they did was to Tom is considered a sin, for all he did was assist helpless women, and for that he got arrested, and he ended up dying in prison. So tehy killed somebody that only did good; this is just like killing a mockingbird. It is a sin to kill a mockingbird because all they do is satisfy our ears.

There is another person who is treated badly due to assumptions based on rumors. This person is named Boo Radley. Boo was supposedly this enourmous super strong man who ate live squirrels and looked in your windows at night. He never left his house during the day, so people assumed that he was this evil who wasbasically a ghost. "When people's azaelas froze in a cold sanp, it was becasue he had breathed on them. All stealthy small crimes commited in Maycomb were his work." (Pg. 9) They never saw him, therefore he must have been crazy. But in reality he was just a very shy person. He only left the house during the evening becasue he wanted to avoid confrontation. One night when Scout and Jem were about to be maliciously murdered, Boo came out and saved them by the attempted murderer. The town deputy knew that Boo had killed him, but said the psychotic man fell on his own knife. Considering Boo's shy ways, he thought blaming him would be like killing a mockingbird. If he were blamed, he would be seen as a hero, but Boowouldn't want the attention that comes with being a hero. So instead of changing his ways by exposing him, they decided to hide him like he would want.

When Tom Robinson was convicted, Jem cried and didn't understand how it happened. The evidence was so clear Tom should have easily won. But Atticus knew it was going to happen and he acted like no injustice had taken place, and frankly he seemed pretty alright with it all together. Jem knew it was wrong to blame Tom because it was obvious he didn't do it, whereas the adults thought it was normal. "'How could they do it, how could they?' 'I don't know, but they did it. They've done it before and they did it tonight and they'll do ut again and when they do it- seems that only children weep. Good night.'" (Pg. 213) Only the children weep because reality hasn't altered their sense of right and wrong. Adults had already been living in their racist world for much longer than the children, so they are insensitive to racism. It is hypocritical for the parents to teach their kids how bad racism is and then go and participate in it. Kids know racism is wrong because the only exposure they have had to it is their parents saying "it is bad." So that is what they know, and they haven't been in the world long enough to be corrupted by it.

The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee teaches us about racism, assumptions and children's inability to absorb reality rapidly. Tom Robinson and Boo Radley were both like mockingbirds, one was killed and one was spared. All Tom was trying to do was help, and for that, he is dead. Now everybody, let's go save some mockingbirds.