Metaphoric Mockingbirds

A detailed Summary of Metaphoric Mockingbirds

To kill a mockingbird, a novel written by Harper Lee, tells the story of Scout Finch, and her brother, Jem, and their experiences of benevolence, bravery, and their loss of innocence. They learn through father, Atticus Finch, that the world isn't always fair and that prejudice exists whether they like it or not. Their adventures begin when a little boy named Dill comes to stay with his aunt during the summer. Jem and Dill become infatuated with the idea of making Boo Radley, who they've never seen come out of his home. After many unsuccessful attempts at accomplishing this feat, they finally learned that they should leave him in peace. After this experience, Atticus is appointed to defend a black man in a racist 1930's Alabama. This novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and later became an Award winning film. Mockingbirds sign beautiful songs for people to enjoy. Yet people mindlessly hurt and kill them although they do no harm. A few of the characters resemble blue jays. These characters are prejudiced people who do harm to society as do the blue jays in bird world. A few of the characters in the novel resemble mockingbirds hence the title of the novel.

Atticus said to Jem one day, "I'd rather you shoot at tin cans

The criteria in this book is used to define metaphoric mockingbirds, through people who do good, do no harm, yet still get hurt. The title, To Kill a Mockingbird, is Harper lee's admonition to society so that people learn to cherish their communities' mockingbirds rather than hurt and kill them.

The second metaphoric mockingbird is Boo Radley. The fabrication that Boo does all these horrible things is untrue. According to town gossip, Boo stabbed his father in the leg as a child while cutting newspaper clippings, and has since been confined to his house. The children imagine Boo as a gruesome figure who eats cats and stalks about the neighborhood under the cover of night. Boo, however, begins to win Scout and Jem over by leaving various gifts for them in the knothole of an oak tree until his brother, Nathan, cements the knothole. Boo even covers Scout with a blanket on a cold night she and Jem spent in front of the Radley house while Miss Maudie's house burned down. After all the children's attempts to drag Boo Radley from his house, he ends up saving them from Bob Ewell. "Will you take me home?" He almost whispered it, in the voice of a child afraid of the dark.p.278 In reality, Boo stands as a figure of innocence who befriends and protects the children in his own way. He is unjustly regarded as an evil person and blamed for everything bad that happens in town. When the sheriff decided that he would not arrest Boo Radley for killing Bob Ewell and that he would present his death as an accident, Atticus asked Scout if she understood the meaning of this decision. Scout replied that she did. Her exact words were: "Well, it'd be sort of like shootin' a mockingbird, wouldn't it?"p.276 Here Boo, is again compared to the mockingbird and again it would be a sin to be punished for the murder he committed.

In this book Atticus Finch, Scout and Jem's father, is one of three metaphoric mockingbirds. Atticus is a criminal defe

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Approximate Word count = 1314
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels