Themes Of To Kill A Mocking Bird

Essay, Research Paper

There were two main themes of To Kill a Mocking Bird. The first is simply this. There areconsequences to everything. No matter how big or small. A person has to think about theconsequences before acting. Otherwise there is a clutter of trouble. This theme was notthe only theme but it was the theme that was played out more during the duration of thebook. The most important time this theme was shown was when the judge came over toAtticus house and asked him to defend a black man. Even though it was not sociallyacceptable at the time, Atticus accepted. Scout, who was Atticus daughter, later askedhim why. Atticus replied that if turned down the case he could never expect his children towhat is right, or hold his head up in town. He knew that the consequence of taking thiscase could be death. However, it was a risk he had thought about and was willing to take.Atticus ended up having to face what could have been an ugly scene if it were not for theinnocence of his little girl, Jean Louis. The second most important time this theme was brought up was after Arthur Boo Radley had saved Jem s and Scout s lives. Atticus was so thankful of Boo s actionshe didn t stop and think properly, which did not happen very often. Atticus wanted tomarch downtown and proclaim to the city what Arthur had done. It was a good thing thatthe sheriff was there otherwise Atticus might have done just that. The sheriff explainedthat dragging Boo into the spotlight would be something that he just could not take. IfAtticus had proceeded to go into town he very well could have ruined Mr. Radley s life. Another event that only stressed the theme of thinking before acting was whenScout got into a fight at school with Walter Cunningham. Scout did not think before sheacted and got in trouble. This particularly incident did turn out all right because it showedthat things can be made right again, to a certain degree. Scout apologized to Walter andinvited him over for dinner. Probably the most comical of all the examples were the annual adventures of Jem,Scout, and Dell Harris. Even though there was no danger the imaginary danger was

equivalent to that of death.

The kids thought that Arthur Radley, or Boo as the haddubbed him, was a psycho. So the children s adventures led them to acting on pureimpulse. Jem had to maintain his masculine reputation. To do this he had to totallydisregard what his father had told him previously about leaving Boo alone. One night Jemtook this obsession to far and crawled into the Radley s backyard. Shots were fired and alot more could have happened all because Jem did not think of what his father said. The second theme is that people should not believe rumors about other people.The only way that someone should believe something about another person is if they heardthe fact directly from the person. Rumors very rarely build a person s reputation or selfesteem. This theme was made evident with Boo Radley. Rumors had circulated to the pointthat every person in the story knew Boo s situation. And each person had their own twistto the ending. Some said that Boo was chain down in the basement. Because children areeager for adventure they will look for adventure in just about anything. So the gamebecame who could get the closest to the Radley house without getting killed. It turned outthat later in the story Boo tried to almost establish a friendship with Scout and Jem. Boodid this by leaving certain objects, probably of some value to him, outside in a tree hole.Boo later goes on to save Scout and Jem s life which just goes to show that none of therumors were true. The second time this theme appeared was with the man and his brown paper bag.Everybody in town thought that they had the low down. Everybody thought that becausethis man had a brown paper bag and hung around black people he was a bad person. Itturns out that the man had a Coke in the bag and hung around black people because theydidn t judge him. Jem asked him why didn t he dispel the rumor if it wasn t true. Theman s answer was basically that people will believe whatever they want to believe. There were many other themes in this book. A person can get out of the bookwhatever they want to. It is a judgment call and these two these are the ones that Ithought were most obvious. The book was great because a person could see so many sidesto it.