To Kill A Mockingbird Themes

In To Kill a Mockingbird, the author Harper Lee, uses different themes to bring a deeper level to each of the characters. Each person helps contributes to the themes through their personality traits. Harper Lee uses the themes of maturity, racism, and loss of innocence in her novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Many characters including Tom Robinson and Boo Radley, have lost their innocence to things that were out of their control. Stories and rumors are a main connection between the two characters because it is what keeps them from living the life they want too. Society and other people’s mistakes have dictated their how they have to life their life in fear of messing up and something worse being done. For the near entirety of his life, Boo
Mayella Ewell, a young girl with a not so good home life, made up a story of Tom raping her when she was vulnerable, to cover up her father’s mistakes, but also her own. Atticus was set to defend the black man and did everything he could to reclaim his innocence: “Atticus has used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men’s hearts Atticus had no other case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed” (244). Atticus and the crowd knew that there was no way to win this case because Tom was a black man and in the 1930s when a colored man was convicted of rape to a white woman, there was no hope to be found not guilty. Atticus tried empathy with Mayella by telling the jury: “She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance, but I cannot pity her: she is white. She knew full well the enormity of her offense, but because her desires were stronger than the code she was breaking, she persisted on breaking it” (273). Atticus told the jury that Tom was innocent, but so was Mayella because she did not commit a crime, but broke one of society’s unofficial accepted laws that frowned upon different races together. Maturity is a common theme throughout the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Scout and Jem mature as they grow older and see another side to the world they are living in. Not only
Characters such as Tom Robinson and Boo Radley experience loss of innocence to stories and rumors made up about them. The scandals made up about Boo has kept him locked up in his house for years, afraid to face the outside world and what they have to say about him. Mayella’s lie cost a nice man his innocence and his life trying to keep her family together. The theme of maturity is brought upon many characters illustrated by Jem and Scout Finch. Jem starts to see the world a little differently by not only looking at it, but by understanding it. Jem’s sister Scout, matures by listening to Atticus’s advice and seeing things from other people’s point of view. The last theme, racism, is a key to the novel because it shows the differences in people and how those differences can bring people together. Society’s unrecorded policies are what is breaking the town up with discrimination. The Finch’s cook, Calpurnia, is also bringing Jem and Scout into another world to show them the differences, but also making them understand it. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses many themes to connect different stories into one