Starting with the title and ending with the plot, the whole book notes the connection of the narrative with harmless birds. The title “To Kill a Mockingbird” is associated with a specific situation that occurred in the plotline. Atticus buys special air rifles for his children for shooting sports. And he warns the children that they can inadvertently kill a mockingbird with this gun. It is an innocent bird that does not even eat berries but only flies with its songs all the time and raises a smile. The purpose of this paper is to reveal the theme of good versus evil in the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee.
The content of the novel is the mental, moral and social formation of the main characters’ personalities. The lawyer Atticus fights for the hopeless case of Tom Robinson, who falls victim to slander at a terrible time when his skin color influences the fate of a person. Black Tom, an exemplary family man, a sinless and simply kind worker, was charged with a crime that he had not committed and was later killed by one of the prison staff. Tom Robinson is also a defenseless mockingbird who suffers both because of his racial affiliation and his infirmity.
At this time, the other guys mock and tease the children of Atticus for having such a father. Daughter Jean tries to resist insults and protect her beloved father. The guys get their way and convince the crowd of wrongness and even cause shame in them, “the one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience” (Lee 108). The quote means that every person should have a conscience, no matter if he is in a crowd or alone.
Throughout the novel, Lee Harper demonstrates that children’s worldviews change significantly over time. In conclusion, the book is devoted primarily to the problems that existed in the USA in the first third of the 20th century. Tolerance and justice in the novel personify only a few adult heroes. For other residents of the fictional Maycomb, the death of a bird is sometimes a more severe sin than the death of a black man.
Work Cited
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. Random House, 2010.