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To Kill A Mockingbird

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To Kill A Mockingbird
Harper Lee’s novel, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ explores many aspects of change through the understanding of individuals and the effects of racial discrimination. The protagonist of the novel is a young girl named Scout who is the daughter of Atticus Finch, a model for justice. The book is written from her perspective to express the innocence of a child and how strong morals can expose them to a cruel world. ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ conveys meaningful lessons through the eyes of Scout that she begins to learn over three years of her childhood. The events that establish her new understandings include putting yourself in other people’s shoes and to not kill mockingbirds.

Scout confronts her first lessons in the novel by comprehending that an individual
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She learns this lesson when Atticus first gives Jem and Scout air rifles, he reminds them to “shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird”. Symbolism is used as it links to characters such as Tom Robinson and Boo Radley as the ‘mockingbird’. Metaphorically, the author is trying to demonstrate that ‘mockingbirds’ represent the good, innocent people who are destroyed by the contradictive side. Tom Robinson would be considered a ‘mockingbird’ because he was an innocent person who was taken advantage of for his race. During the trial, he was declared guilty, even though all the evidence shows that Tom was innocent. “The senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children”, is a metaphor that states the ‘songbirds’ as Tom and ‘hunters and children’ as the racist jury. A mood swift is also present through an alliteration to generate a dark, eerie tone towards the reader throughout this particular scene. Boo Radley is another person who can connect to this statement as he has isolated himself from society and is seen as a threat amongst the community. Throughout the book, he does anonymous favours for Jem and Scout which eventually make the children notice that Boo is essentially kind. Despite the pureness of his heart, Boo is a victim of his abusive father and his seclusion is enforced through his family. Later on, Scout tells Atticus

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