Theme Of Loneliness In To Kill A Mockingbird

Sara Awad
ENG 2DO
Mrs. Davis
April 25, 2017

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird demonstrates the longing for companionship among the Maycomb residents. Set in Maycomb County, Alabama, the characters Mayella Ewell, Boo Radley, and Tom Robinson are the town's outcasts. Dill is Scout and Jem’s closest friend, and Mayella Ewell is part of an impoverished family. Some in Maycomb feel isolation, hard life changing events and difficulty in adapting to the community. It is through these characters that the reader begins to understand that loneliness is not a choice. Some individuals in Maycomb families feel isolated. Mayella has to take care of her seven siblings, as well as house chores since her mother's death. Tom Robinson states
After Jem’s mother died, he began to disengage himself from family activities. Scout states “I did not miss her, but I think Jem did sometimes in the middle of a game he would sigh at length, then go off and play by himself behind the car house” (6). Jem’s behaviour is understood by his father who also misses his wife. Scout never knew her mother well and is often pushed away by Jem because she does not understand his grief. Furthermore, Scout was not emotionally affected by her mother's death, she states, “ Jem stayed moody and silent for a week. As Atticus had once advised me to do, I tried to climb into Jem’s skin and walk around in it” (57). Scout’s loneliness is the result of Jem's loneliness, her feelings are affected and she must constantly place herself in his shoes to understand why he gives her a hard time. In addition, Mrs Dubose is a morphine addict who chooses to stop taking it. She suffers in pain without the morphine to relieve her. Atticus states, “she took it as a pain-killer for years. The doctor put her on it. she‘d have spent the rest of her life on it and died without so much agony” (111). Mrs. Dubose was forced to battle her addiction alone until Jem and Scout provided her with the support that she needed to ease the agony she felt through the withdrawal. Jem learns what real courage is and why Mrs Dubose hid behind a mask and turned to hate. A mother’s death, a loved
Boo Radley spent twenty-three years locked out from the outside world. Boo constantly tries to communicate with Scout and Jem by placing items inside the tree knot. Scout states, “We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we have given him nothing” (278). Scout and Jem are emotionally affected when they realise that Boo’s brother, Nathan Radley had placed cement in the tree knot that Boo used to place the chewing gum and the other items, therefore, cutting Boo’s ability to communicate with the Finch siblings. Moreover, Mayella is uneducated and has attended school for three years, she is not smart enough for college. Atticus states during the trial that“ She tempted a negro… she did something that in our society is unspeakable” (204). Mayella has broken the unspoken law of Maycomb which states that any member of the Black community cannot be with a member of the White community. She had simply reached out to the one person she thought cared for her, Tom Robinson. Scout gets in trouble for her ability to read at a young age. Miss Caroline believes that it is her job to teach the students and not the parent. Scout tells her father, “ She said you taught me all wrong, so we can't ever read anymore, ever.” (29). Maycomb children are not meant to be able to read and write like Scout. The Maycomb residents have established its own culture and a moral code that is difficult for youth to