Good And Evil In To Kill A Mockingbird

Through a closed study of harper lees “to kill a mockingbird” we are encouraged to explore and reflect upon our world. To contemplate such themes as racial prejudice, stereotypes, social injustices and growing up. This is achieved via the narration of scout who was a 6 year old girl caught in the middle of the chaos of the trial of Tom Robinson. Through this we witness the coexistence of good and evil display in the relationship between Atticus and Mr Ewell, how events can lead to children growing up and determine their moral judgement, how stereotypes and predetermined racially prejudistic ideologies can be challenged, displayed through the incontestable innocence of Tom Robinson in the trial and the nature of Calpurnia. To Kill a Mockingbird
This good nature displayed by Atticus is juxtaposed to Mr Ewell. Mr Ewell and the Ewell family was the “"the disgrace of Maycomb for three generations". Lee efficiently uses the antagonist in the novel, a man who “spends his relief checks on green whiskey his children have a way of crying from hunger pains”, as the most predominate source of evil in the novel. His mean, raciest, unforgiving, ignorant, sexist ways seemed to directly contrast Atticus’s moral judgement. Lee expertly indicates that for there to be good there must be bad. For Atticus to defend Tom Robinson and start a snowball effect which lead there to be more people standing up for the rights of black people, there must be an evil entity like Mr Ewell, two completely different entities which though are oppose tu each other but cannot live without each other. Many parallels can be drawn between Mr Ewell and Atticus and the philosophy of the yin yang. Lee also makes a comment about how such humans are neither good nor evil implying that everyone has the capacity to do both, this is primarily displayed throughout Mr Cunnningham’s transition from being a good man from scouts point of view who would pay the finches with “what they had.”
Lee eludes to this all throughout the book. Using the events which lead to mockingbirds such as Boo Radley and Tom Robinson’s innocence being destroyed as the centre point for most of the book. Lee uses the metaphor “Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." as catalyst to the idea that mockingbirds such as Boo Radley and Tom Robinson are just people who have done nothing wrong and are there to serve others innocence should not be destroyed but they are eventually. At the end of the book we see that Boo Radley heroically save the children from Mr Ewell. This was a man who throughout the novel had been described to the children man who “dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch” who was described as this “malevolent phantom” when in actual fact he was an innocent kind soul who was destroyed by the evils in society. We witness his kind hearted spirit when he gave the children who were unknowing “Wrigley’s chewing gum”, “Indian head pennies” and many other gifts before the tree in which he left it got cemented by his father. Boo Radley presented many good qualities such as courage, selflessness and heroinism when he saved Scout and Jem’s life from Mr Ewell, further cementing him as a mockingbird. Throughout the novel Lee eludes to the fact that Tom Robinson is a mockingbird.