Leon's English Journal

A way that Harpee Lee shows life in town like Maycomb is through symbolism. The mockingbird is a recurring motif through out the story, and it represents the destruction of innocence in characters such as Atticus and Tom Robinson. Atticus says in one part of the book “Shoot all the blue jays you want, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” The reason it is a sin to kill is because all they do is sing for people and nothing else. This is said by Miss Maudie in the book. The way this links in with the story line is the fact that Tom Robinson is charged with rape, when it is shown to the audience that he is innocent. Tom Robinsons innocence is destroyed as he always helped Mayella Ewell, and even denied her money. But he is imprisoned because of Bob Ewells prejudism towards the black community. Harper Lee shows that there were unfair trials in the 1930s such as Tom Robinsons case, and there was a lot of prejudice towards the black community in everyday life.

Racism and prejudice is a strong theme in the book and the idea is always brought up like the court case. Harper Lee is trying to send a message to the audience of what life was like at that time. When people were at the courthouse Scout sees “…the white people were lining up in front of the negroes.” The theme is woven into the story line, but Maycomb county is generally portrayed as a peacefully place. She creates a peaceful semantic field using the words “quite, silent, normal and tranquil”. The effect this has is it creates a calm atmosphere, and it makes daily life appear normal and nothing out of the ordinary usually occurs. However I think the word “silent” creates a more suspenseful atmosphere. This is how Maycomb is persieved by Scout, but she does not see the darkness behind the county, until the fragmented sections which are told from the point of view from an older and more mature Scout.

In “To kill a mockingbird” Jem begins to see how there is segregation in society, as he says “There’s four kinds of folk in this world. There’s the ordinary kind like us and the neighbours, there’s the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the negroes.”

The speech from Jem shows that Jem has started to realise that people are seperated in Maycomb county, not only by race, but also by class. The Ewells and Cunninghams have less money and are less educated so they are classed as a different kind of folk. The black community are also seperated due to their different tone of skin.

Jem’s also begins to understand the hatred between the groups in society, and this is shown through events that occur in the book. An example would be the courthouse case and how Mayella Ewell immorally claimed that Tom Robinson had raped her. Jem says “…the thing about it is our folks don’t like the Cunninghams, the Cunninghams don’t like the Ewells, and the Ewells hate and despise the coloured folks. Even though Jem does not specifically say he realises how there is hatred in Maycomb society and all of the “four groups” hate each other.

The fact that Jem says these things shows the audience that Jem is slowly maturing and he understand the segregation and hatred in his society. This make Jem feel sad and angry as “he punched his pillow” and “his face went cloudy”. From his violent actions it is clear that he is frustrated and clears his anger by punching a wall. Furthermore, I can connote from the world cloudy that his face was pale looking and expressionless, because of his anger.

The theme present in the passage is the idea of there being one group of people in the world however, there is a lot of seperation. Another message which is brought to the audience is that people are seperated because of there education and wealth. Jem states that reading and writing must be what sets people apart because the Cunninghams can’t read and write and they are thought of as a lower class, so that must be the reason. Scout disagrees with him and gives her opinion that there should be only one type of folk, folk. The overall theme presented is that social hierarchies are developed in a community because of wealth, education and race.

Harper Lee uses allusion in “To kill a Mockingbird” to expose the hypocrisy of the society in Maycomb county. An example is where Miss Gates says “There are no people better than the Jews, and why Hitler doesn’t see that is a mystery to me”. In this quotation Harper Lee alludes to the holocaust and mistreatment of Jews during World War 2.

This exposes the hypocrisy of Maycomb county as Miss Gates sympathises for the Jewish community and even states that they were pushed out of there own country. However, she can not sympathise for the black community, even though they were pushed out there own country during the triangular trade of the African community, and they have been mistreated through slavery.