Legal Themes in To Kill A Mocking Bird
Legal Themes in To Kill A Mocking Bird
This is an essay about To Kill A Mocking Bird. Throughout the course of history there have always been men and women who have preyed on the innocent. They do this not because it is easy, nor because it is hard, but rather because they can. They are the aftermath of poverty and poor upbringings. These universal troublemakers are present in every form of society. They believe that the ends always justify the means as long as the fate of their mischief is bestowed upon someone else. At times like this, those who fall victim to their folly are the innocent.
This is the reoccurring theme in the classic American novel written by Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird, published in 1960. In the world there are “mockingbirds” of society. They never cause any harm, and in fact, they usually have good intents. Like the true mockingbirds of the wild, they bless others while they sing their pleasant songs. Yet, even though they only raise their joyous song for pleasure, they are hunted because they can be preyed upon. As a metaphor to true life, people like this, the innocent “mockingbirds”, are constantly being harassed and prosecuted for all the wrong reasons. “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 the 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.”(90) It is wrong to harm them because they never did anything to deserve their punishment. Yet even though this may be true, there is no such thing as a perfect world, and the unjust treatment will never stop. The innocents at times do pay for the crimes of the guilty. Harper Lee illustrates this in her writings of this novel. I believe that the theme of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was a message to her readers, which was shown through several of the characters as “mockingbird” figures, who were wrongfully destroyed by the ignorance and hatred of those guilty.
Tom Robinson was the appointed victim of the novel, and therefore, the most dominant “mockingbird” in the story. Throughout his trial in the later chapters of the...