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Themes, Motifs & Symbols
Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in
a literary work
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The novel approaches this question by
dramatizing ​Scout​ and ​Jem​’s transition from a perspective of childhood
innocence, in which they assume that people are good because they have
never seen evil, to a more adult perspective, in which they have confronted
evil and must incorporate it into their understanding of the world
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Even Jem is victimized to an extent by his discovery of
the evil of racism during and after the trial
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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
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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
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In this way, Atticus is able to admire Mrs
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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
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THE IMPORTANCE OF 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
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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
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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
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THE EXISTENCE OF SOCIAL INEQUALITY

Differences in social status are explored largely through the over
complicated social hierarchy of Maycomb, the ins and outs of which
constantly baffle the children
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Ignorant country farmers like the Cunninghams lie below the
townspeople, and the white trash Ewells rest below the Cunninghams
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These rigid
social divisions that make up so much of the adult world are revealed in the
book to be both irrational and destructive
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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
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GOTHIC DETAILS

The forces of good and evil in ​To Kill a Mockingbird​ seem larger than the
small Southern town in which the story takes place
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In literature, the term Gothic refers to a style of fiction
first popularized in eighteenth-century England, featuring supernatural
occurrences, gloomy and haunted settings, full moons, and so on
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These elements,
out of place in the normally quiet, predictable Maycomb, create tension in
the novel and serve to foreshadow the troublesome events of the trial and
its aftermath
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As if
to contrast with all of the suspense and moral grandeur of the book, Lee
emphasizes the slow-paced, good-natured feel of life in Maycomb
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The horror of the fire,
for instance, is mitigated by the comforting scene of the people of
Maycomb banding together to save Miss Maudie’s possessions
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Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to
represent abstract ideas or concepts
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In this story of
innocents destroyed by evil, the “mockingbird” comes to represent the idea
of innocence
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Throughout the book, a number of characters (Jem, Tom Robinson, Dill,
Boo Radley, Mr
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This
connection between the novel’s title and its main theme is made explicit
several times in the novel: after Tom Robinson is shot, Mr
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” Most important, Miss Maudie explains to Scout:
“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but
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That’s
why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird
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BOO RADLEY

As the novel progresses, the children’s changing attitude toward Boo
Radley is an important measurement of their development from innocence
toward a grown-up moral perspective
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As he leaves Jem and Scout
presents and mends Jem’s pants, he gradually becomes increasingly and
intriguingly real to them
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Boo, an intelligent child ruined by a cruel father, is
one of the book’s most important mockingbirds; he is also an important
symbol of the good that exists within people
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In
saving Jem and Scout from Bob Ewell, Boo proves the ultimate symbol of
good

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