To Kill a Mockingbird Title Significance

Typically, the title of a novel summarizes the contents of the literature in a word or short phrase. To Kill a Mockingbird, an American classic novel written by Harper Lee, is no counterexample. The title To Kill a Mockingbird is perhaps one of the best literary metaphors in modern prose writing. The reader must analyze text examples in order to realize and understand the metaphor that shapes the novel. To Kill a Mockingbird was not named the best book of the 20th century because it has an elementary plot, it earned the honor because it is overflowing with complexities and details that require thought. The thought that is required to understand the title, as well as the novel, is what makes the story of a first-grader from Maycomb, Alabama, a beautiful one.

The phrase “to kill a mockingbird” is only mentioned three times throughout the entire novel, consisting of two parts and thirty-one chapters. The first is in Chapter Ten. The main character, Scout Finch, and her older brother Jem receive air rifles for Christmas. Their father, Atticus, asks that they only shoot at tin cans, and to remember that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird. “‘Remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.’ That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it.

‘Your father’s right,’ she said. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy’” (Lee 119). This quote is where the major theme of innocence begins. The mockingbird is a symbol of innocence, because it has done nothing wrong, similarly to Tom Robinson.

Following the trial where Tom Robinson is convicted, in Chapter 25 he is shot and killed. The owner of the newspaper in Maycomb wrote an article about the incident.“Mr. Underw...

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...ike shootin’ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?’ (Lee 370). What this means, is that it would be wrong to expose someone, Boo, that did no wrong to them, “sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird.”

It is a sin to kill innocence. Mockingbirds themselves are innocent, Tom Robinson was innocent, and Boo Radley was innocent. This a a story of a little girl’s innocence being killed. Scout was exposed to the evils of the world little by little as the tale progressed. She realized the presence of racism, sexism, rape, murder, and injustice all before she was nine years old. Scout and Jem are dynamic characters, meaning that they go through a change. They have been exposed to great immorality, and because of that; they have matured and become more emotionally capable than most adults.

Works Cited

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 1976. Print.