To Kill a Mockingbird

MOTIF. At the beginning of the year our whole class pretty much had a extreme issue with understanding the definition of motif. I have been struggling since to grasp the idea. To Kill a Mockingbird has definitely helped me uncover this concept because of its exaggerated and yet subtle motif, the mockingbird.The mockingbird is a symbol of innocence, harmless, so to kill one is a sign of the destruction of innocence though evil.

The mockingbird is introduced by Atticus when he tells his children that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird and reoccurs throughout the novel either literally or metaphorically. Characters
who seem to represent this are mainly Tom Robinson and Boo Radley, though there are many others such as Jem, Mr. Raymond and Dill. On page 241 Mr. Underwood "likens Tom's death to the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters or children. " He says this because Tom innocent to the crime he is incarcerated for, and he is harmless just extremely scared.

Toward the end of the book Scout tells her father it would be like shootin' a mocking bird wouldn't it? to tell the town that he was the one who saved them from Bob Ewell and bringing all that attention onto his sensitive person. Continuing the thought of Bob, he seems to be the main source of evil and pollution of innocence. He first of all seems to have committed innumerable crimes to his own family, then of course concocting the lie about Tom, and attacking the children. He seems to be the vessel of prejudices, injustices and cruelty, spreading his evil through Maycomb ( not saying all of Maycomb's population is just). In the end, the Mockingbird ties in the themes, characters and issues that are dealt with in this classic novel and pulls it all into one neatly constructed story.