Exam Themes in "To Kill a Mockingbird"

The Mockingbird Theme

The title of the novel alerts us to the importance of this theme. It comes from an old proverb that “it's a sin to kill a mockingbird”. The children first hear this from Atticus, when he gives them air rifles as Christmas presents (Chapter 10). He tells them they should shoot only at tin-cans but, seeing that they may well shoot birds, allows them to shoot the very common bluejay (regarded in the USA rather as pigeons are in the UK) but not mockingbirds. (Modern readers, especially in the UK, where many bird species are protected by law should note that hunting birds is considered acceptable sport in most parts of Europe and the USA even today. In the 1930s most children would have seen it as normal to hunt animals and birds.)

Scout is puzzled by this remark and asks Miss Maudie Atkinson about it. Miss Maudie says that:
“Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, they don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird. ”

The mockingbird of the proverb is a harmless creature which does its best to please its hearers by singing, but which is defenceless against hunters. (Perhaps hunters with a sense of sport would avoid the bird, as being too easy a target.) The wrongness of killing the bird is evident, but it becomes a metaphor for the wrongness of harming innocent and vulnerable people.
In the novel, while we associate the mockingbird generally with weak and defenceless people, there are two characters who are more explicitly likened to the bird. These are Tom Robinson and Arthur Radley. Why are these two like the mockingbird?

Tom is physically disabled, but his real weakness is his social position - he is a black man, to whom a white woman has made sexual advances, so he must be destroyed.

Arthur is psychologically disadvantaged - he is very timid and almost incapable of being integrated into Maycomb's society.

The author makes the comparison clearer in Chapter 25. Here, B.B. Underwood spells is out for his readers, writing in his editorial that it:

“...was a sin to kill cripples, be they standing, sitting or escaping. He likened Tom's death to the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and chidren...”

Scout notes that Mr. Underwood was writing so children could understand. She is a child and she understands. Many of the novel's readers will also be children. (You should be aware, though, that it was written for adult readers. Harper Lee could not have foreseen that the novel would become a set text for pupils in so many schools.)

As the children set off for the pageant (Chapter 28), Jem hears a mockingbird and jokes that Boo must not be at home. There is an obvious irony in that he is very wrong in associating Boo with “haints” and “hot steams” but is right in his joking suggestion that Boo is not at home. Not only is Boo out of doors (or just about to leave) but his doing so is what delivers the children from real and very human danger, not the gothic fantasies of Halloween. But there are more odd pointers:

when the bird starts to sing, the children are in front of the Radley house
the bird is “solitary” and unaware “whose tree he sat in”

When Heck Tate (Chapter 30) tells Atticus that he will not let Boo be exposed to publicity, he insists that “...draggin' him and his shy ways into the limelight...” is “...a sin. It's a sin and I'm not about to have it on my head...”

Scout shows that she understands Mr. Tate completely, when she says:
“Well, it'd be sort of like shootin' a mockingbird, wouldn't it?”
Atticus embraces Scout, to acknowledge that she is right.

Stereotyping
To Kill a Mockingbird sets out to challenge some stereotypes but it may also reinforce some alternative stereotypes. One common criticism of the novel is that the black characters are idealized. Lula is an exception, objecting to the appearance at First Purchase of the Finch children.

Harper Lee attacks the stereotype of the promiscuous and sexually voracious black man, but she endorses the stereotype of "White trash", in the Ewell family. In the USA there are many people who disapprove of dependency on the state, and on welfare payments - both the poor Cunninghams and the wealthy (but emotionally poor) Radleys are proud of their self-reliance.

The stereotype of aristocratic white women is held up to ridicule - their virtue is seen as excessive delicacy, and they appear as selfish and hypocritical. Scout wants to be like a boy, because she likes to be active. In general, the novel depicts men more favourably - or perhaps it shows that men may commit worse actions but women are more spiteful in what they say. Perhaps only a woman can be so tough in depicting her own sex (in this respect, Harper Lee writes rather in the manner of Jane Austen).

In a novel with a huge cast of characters, there is no reason to avoid using stereotypes in every case. There are plenty of characters, from Atticus to Dolphus Raymond, from Miss Maudie to Boo Radley, who do not conform to any stereotype.