Theme in "To Kill a Mockingbird" Please take notes on the text in RED.

What is theme? THEMES are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. Examples: Two themes in the Harry Potter books and movies are: the power of love, (Harry can love, which is what makes him more powerful than Voldemort) and the value of humility (Harry, who is humble and doesn’t brag about himself, is more successful than someone like Draco Malfoy who brags about his family and their money and power.)

Another example of theme… One theme of the “Star Wars” movies is good versus evil (the Jedi against the Sith). One theme of the “Twilight” books is choice (the Cullen family make the choice not to feed on humans, though it is in their nature as vampires to do so).

Themes of “To Kill a Mockingbird” There are four main themes of “To Kill a Mockingbird”: The Coexistence of Good and Evil: The novel shows the reader the transition of Scout and Jem from innocent children, when they assume that all people are good, to a more adult perspective where they encounter evil, prejudice and hatred. The character representing moral good is Atticus, the character representing moral evil is Mr. Ewell (the father of the girl who claims that Tom Robinson raped her).

The moral voice of To Kill a Mockingbird is embodied by Atticus Finch, who is virtually unique in the novel in that he has experienced and understood evil without losing his faith in the human capacity for goodness. Atticus understands that, rather than being simply creatures of good or creatures of evil, most people have both good and bad qualities. The important thing is to appreciate the good qualities and understand the bad qualities by treating others with sympathy and trying to see life from their perspective.

He tries to teach this ultimate moral lesson to Jem and Scout to show them that it is possible to live with conscience without losing hope or becoming cynical. In this way, Atticus is able to admire Mrs. Dubose’s courage even while deploring her racism. Scout’s progress as a character in the novel is defined by her gradual development toward understanding Atticus’s lessons, culminating when, in the final chapters, Scout at last sees Boo Radley as a human being. Her newfound ability to view the world from his perspective ensures that she will not become jaded as she loses her innocence.

2. Prejudice and Injustice 2. Prejudice and Injustice. (Prejudice: forming judgement before knowing the facts; Injustice: lack of justice, wrong) . The book starts out cheerful and positive about Maycomb, but then as it goes on, Scout begins to see the cruel prejudice of the Maycomb people against blacks, and their disgust that Atticus is defending a black man in court. Scout and her brother begin to learn of how unfair society is, that a whole race of people can be mistreated because of the color of their skin, and some people are seen as less important because they don’t have much money.

Atticus's belief in treating and respecting everyone as an individual is contrasted in To Kill a Mockingbird with a number of other worldviews. These other visions are all quite different from each other—they are religious, racist, classist—but they all share one thing in common: they treat people as groups, demand conformity, and give no respect or credit to individuals. In other words, they are all forms of prejudice, which is a preconceived notion about a person based on the groups to which that person belongs. Over and over again, To Kill a Mockingbirdreveals prejudice not just as closed-minded and dangerous, but also as ridiculous.

The most obvious form of prejudice in the novel is racism, which causes otherwise upstanding white citizens of Maycomb to accept the testimony of an obviously corrupt white man over the evidence supporting the testimony from a black man. Yet 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 the gender stereotypes that people try to force on Scout; and even in the way the town views Boo Radley as a monster because he acts differently from everyone else.

Differences in social status are explored largely through the overcomplicated social hierarchy of Maycomb, the ins and outs of which constantly baffle the children. The relatively well-off Finches stand near the top of Maycomb’s social hierarchy, with most of the townspeople beneath them. Ignorant country farmers like the Cunninghams lie below the townspeople, and the white trash Ewells rest below the Cunninghams. But the black community in Maycomb, despite its abundance of admirable qualities, squats below even the Ewells, enabling Bob Ewell to make up for his own lack of importance by persecuting Tom Robinson.

These rigid social divisions that make up so much of the adult world are revealed in the book to be both irrational and destructive. For example, Scout cannot understand why Aunt Alexandra refuses to let her consort with young Walter Cunningham. Lee uses the children’s perplexity at the unpleasant layering of Maycomb society to critique the role of class status and, ultimately, prejudice in human interaction.

3. Courage: What makes true courage? Scout and Jem get guns for Christmas, and are very exited by this. They later see Atticus take a perfect shot at a rabid dog from a long distance, and both are very impressed. But Atticus teaches them that courage isn’t holding a gun. Courage is “when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.” Atticus shows true courage by accepting Tom Robinson’s case, even though he knows that he cannot win it, because of the prejudice of the people of Maycomb.

Many people, including Jem and Scout when they're young, mix up courage with strength. They think that courage is the ability and willingness to use strength to get your way. But 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 To Kill a Mockingbird, is not about winning or losing. It's about thinking long and hard about what's right instead of relying on personal prejudice or gut reaction, and then doing what's right whether you win or lose.

To Kill a Mockingbird is filled with examples of courage, from Mrs To Kill a Mockingbird is filled with examples of courage, from Mrs. Dubose's fight against her morphine addiction, to Atticus's determination to face down the racism of the town, to Mr. Underwood's willingness to face down his own racist feelings and support what he knows, in the end, is right.

4. Growing up and moral education Because exploration of the novel’s larger moral questions takes place within the perspective of children, the education of children is necessarily involved in the development of all of the novel’s themes. In a sense, the plot of the story charts Scout’s moral education, and the theme of how children are educated—how they are taught to move from innocence to adulthood—recurs throughout the novel. This theme is explored most powerfully through the relationship between Atticus and his children, as he devotes himself to instilling a social conscience in Jem and Scout

The scenes at school provide a direct counterpoint to Atticus’s effective education of his children: Scout is frequently confronted with teachers who are either frustratingly unsympathetic to children’s needs or morally hypocritical. 

As is true of To Kill a Mockingbird’s other moral themes, the novel’s conclusion about education is that the most important lessons are those of sympathy and understanding, and that a sympathetic, understanding approach is the best way to teach these lessons. In this way, Atticus’s ability to put himself in his children’s shoes makes him an excellent teacher, while Miss Caroline’s rigid commitment to the educational techniques that she learned in college makes her ineffective and even dangerous.