To Kill a Mockingbird

A detailed Summary of To Kill a Mockingbird

Tom Robinson and Boo Radley, Maycomb's Mockingbirds

In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the two characters Boo Radley and Tom Robinson are much like the Mockingbird, harmless yet destroyed. Boo and Tom were such sad characters that they kept to themselves and shied from the public eye. The townspeople of Maycomb caused them to become outsiders because of their lifestyles which did not revolve around the towns stereotypes.

Boo Radley served as a mystery at the beginning of the story. A man only known to Jem and Scout as some kind of monster from the tales gathered by the town gossips over the years. "Don't you know you're not supposed to even touch the trees over there? You'll get killed if you do" (33) Jem said when they found a gift in the tree for the first time. His fictional life, built upon made up stories, served as a game for the Finch children and Dill to act out. Boo represented something somewhat forbidden and unknown. The children were naturally curious about his true lifestyle and who he really was. They were so interested that they even went as far as to venture into the Radley property at night to try and peek at Boo inside and find clues.

It was not until the story progressed that w

e see that this man does not possess the character of the strange man that Maycomb makes him out to be. In fact, he was a kind and gentle man who fought for what he knew was right and risked his own well being when he saved Jem and Scout from Mr. Ewell. Boo tried to show the children that he was not how many people perceive him to be. He did this with such discreet gestures such as leaving them gifts in the hollow hole in the trunk of the old tree between their houses, and by covering Scout with a blanket when Miss. Maudie's house was on fire. Boo Radley may have gone in to that house as a boy, but when he came out, he came out as a man who deserved a lot more credit then anyone had wanted to give him.

Tom Robinson was an innocent man yet the jury decided he was guilty before they even heard the case. "Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed" (241). It wasn't a matter of what was right and what actually happened, but a matter of black and white, a clear difference that decided his fate in the end. The mere fact that he was black and lived in the "nigger-nest" (175) gave the townspeople the sole excuse to accuse and prove him guilty of raping Mayella Ewell. Atticus Finch, Tom's lawyer, defended him and proved to the whole courtroom that Tom was almost incapable of committing this crime for he could not have caused those injuries on Mayella for reasons stated. The town of Maycomb was a typical racist, small, southern town, full of people afraid to stand up for what was right. This is where the title "To Kill a Mockingbird" relates, Tom Robinson representing the Mocking

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Approximate Word count = 1095
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels