Five Main Themes in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD GOOD. EVIL and HUMAN DIGNITY PREJUDICE GROWING UP COURAGE SMALL TOWN SOUTHERN LIFE 1Themes - To Kill A Mocking Bird

Good, Evil and Human Dignity To Kill a Mockingbird is largely remembered for the trial of TOM ROBINSON and its racial outcome. For this people often think that the book’s theme is simple – a criticism of racism and evil. More complex – except in the case of BOB EWELL, the novel avoids simple portrayals and criticism of “evil” It shows SCOUT and JEM’s experience that Maycomb and its citizens are a complicated mixture of good and bad, full of people with strength and weakness. 2Themes - To Kill A Mocking Bird

Good, Evil and Human Dignity Two characters of almost complete good – Atticus and Boo Radley – but in different ways Boo maintains is goodness by hiding from the world, while Atticus engages in it. Atticus acknowledges the evil in people and the world and fights against the evil. He also appreciates what is good in those same people who through personal weaknesses may support evil causes. Atticus believes that everyone has a basic human dignity and that he owes each person both respect and the effort to try to understand their point of view. Atticus tries to instill this perspective in Scout when he tells her that instead of condemning people for doing things that she thinks are cruel or unfair or weird, she should try “standing in their skin” 3Themes - To Kill A Mocking Bird

Prejudice Atticus’s belief in treating and respecting everyone as an individual is contrasted in MOCKINGBIRD with a number of points of view – religious, racist – people are treated in groups, conformity is demanded where no respect or credit is given to individuality Imbedded forms of prejudice exists in groups – where a preconceived notion exists about people based on the groups to which they belong. Throughout MOCKINGBIRD – the author reveals prejudice not just as closed minded and dangerous, but also as ridiculous. 4Themes - To Kill A Mocking Bird

Prejudice - continued The most obvious prejudice is racism – which causes otherwise “upstanding” white citizens of Maycomb to accept the testimony of a corrupt man over the evidence supporting the testimony of a black man. Prejudice is also visible in the racially condescending MRS. GRACE MERRIWEATHER, in AUNT ALEXANDRA’S and many other character’s belief in the importance of social class, in gender stereotypes that people try to force on SCOUT and in the way the town views BOO RADLEY as a a monster because he acts differently than others. 5Themes - To Kill A Mocking Bird

Growing Up In the three years covered by MOCKINGBIRD – SCOUT and JEM grow up. They begin as innocent children with a simple sense of what is good and evil GOOD= ATTICUS, the people of Maycomb EVIL= BOO RADLEY At the end, the children have lost their innocence and gained a more complex understanding of the world in which good and evil exists and can be visible in almost everyone. As the children grow into an adult world, they don’t just don’t accept what they see. They begin to question what does not make sense to them – prejudice, hatred, violence. MOCKINGBIRD shows three children as they loose their innocence. It uses their innocence to look freshly at the town of Maycomb and criticizes its flaws. 6Themes - To Kill A Mocking Bird

Growing Up: School System - Continued Like every child growing up, Scout attends school, but rather than contribute to her education, the school is depicted as rigid to the point of idiocy, with teachers who criticize students who got an early start on reading and hate the NAZI’s but can’t see the racism in their own town. MOCKINGBIRD does not so much explore the standardized school system as condemn it, showing how it emphasizes “rote” facts and policies designed to create “conformist” children rather than promoting creative, critical thinking, sympathetic and mutual understanding across racial, social and economic boundaries 7Themes - To Kill A Mocking Bird

Courage Many people, including JEM and SCOUT, when they are young, mix up courage with strength. They think that courage is the ability and willingness to use strength to get your way. Atticus defines courage as “ when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what” Courage in MOCKINGBIRD is not about winning or losing. It is about thinking long and hard about what is right instead of relying on personal prejudice or gut reaction, and then doing what is right whether you win or loose. 8Themes - To Kill A Mocking Bird

Examples of Courage: MOCKINGBIRD is filled with examples of courage – MRS. DUBROSE’s fight against her morphine addiction, ATTICUS’s determination to face down racism in Maycomb, MR. UNDERWOOD’s willingness to face down his own racist feelings and support what he knows in the end is right. 9Themes - To Kill A Mocking Bird

Small Town Southern Life Maycomb is a small town with all the characteristics of what believes life is like in this type of setting: everyone knows everyone’s business which can lead to endless and mostly harmless gossip. This can make the community extremely intimate and close-knit. The first part of the novel focuses on the close- knit community – Scout and Jem believe that’s what Maycomb is. 10Themes - To Kill A Mocking Bird

Small Town Southern Life continued To some extent, young Scout and Jem are right – Maycomb is a small, safe, peaceful, and intimate community As Scout and Jem grow up, they discover that the community/town has fiercely maintained and mostly illogical social hierarchy based on wealth, history, religion, and race. The town insists on communal conformity that subjects anyone who does not conform to dislike or mistrust. The town gains its peace by resisting change and ignoring injustice. 11Themes - To Kill A Mocking Bird

Small Town Southern Life continued MOCKINGBIRD is not a condemnation of small town life in the South Maycomb is simply a town in much the same way as its citizens – containing wisdom and blindness, good and evil, and for all of that – possessing its own dignity. 12Themes - To Kill A Mocking Bird