Main Themes in Novel “To Kill a Mockingbird”

In our courts we are all innocent until proven guilty. What happens when not everyone believes this? The book To Kill a Mockingbird shows us how the township of Maycomb, a man named Atticus, and three kids named Scout, Jem, and Dill, all of whom suffered.

Let’s start with explaining the court case of Tom Robinson. The court case was that Tom was accused of brutality beating and raping Mayella Ewell. The case was mostly a she said he said, but the little evidence that was there proved that he didn’t do it. Like the bruises on Mayella were consistent with a left handed culprit, but Tom couldn’t even move his left hand. While Robert Ewell who is Mayella’s father whom is left handed and strong enough to cause all the bruising on Mayella. The main reason why Tom was convicted was because he was black not white, like Mayella. The townspeople never gave Tom’s words any thought until months after his death, because of how Robert was so happy about it even months later. The townspeople slowly started to agree with Atticus that Tom was innocent but it was too late.

Atticus was the town’s local lawyer, who took Tom’s case. He knew he would be criticized like this quote will show “The main one is, if I didn’t couldn’t hold up my head in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislator, I couldn’t even tell you or Jem not to do something again.”- Atticus. Atticus didn’t like how his kids kept getting involved in Tom’s case. When it came time for the court date Atticus gave it his all, like asking the witnesses two to three times if they could identify who attacked Mayella. He asked Robert if he was left handed, and showed that Tom couldn’t use his left hand. In the end he couldn’t prevent the guilty verdict. Atticus earned the blacks who were there respect as this quote shows “Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passin’.”-Reverend Sykes.

Now Scout (whose real name is Jean) and Jem are Atticus’s Kids, and Dill was a friend of Scout and Jem. One school day Scout overheard a group of kids calling Atticus a “nigger lover” and Scout got into a fight with the kids, and when she got home Atticus had already found out, and asked her not to fight and just put up with the teasing. Scout did put up with being tormented for trusting Atticus that it was alright to defend a black man. When the court date came the three kids sneaked into the courtroom by sitting with the blacks, so they could see if Tom was innocent. The three kids didn’t understand how the jury could find Tom guilty with the lack of proof that he was guilty. One day months later Scout asked Atticus how he could forgive the townspeople for how they treated him, and he answered with saying that “most people are nice when you finally see them.”- Atticus.