Examples Of Good And Evil In To Kill A Mockingbird

Not everyone is perfect. Everyone in the whole world has and always will have imperfections. Those imperfections include jealousy, hatred, selfishness and being judgmental. To Kill a Mockingbird is about two young kids living in a town called Maycomb. They are next door neighbors with a man called Boo Radley; he is a complication throughout the story. While the kids are trying to grow up in a racist era their Father, Atticus, is fighting for the life of an innocent man by the name of Tom Robinson.

Mr. Cunningham is both a good and bad man. Good and Evil at the same time. He appears about halfway through the novel in a mob of people. Lee states, “A mob’s always made up of people, no matter what. Mr. Cunningham was part of a mob last night, but he was still a man” (210). Mr. Cunningham is in mob that is going after Tom Robinson and showing that, the reader can see he has some form of evil within him. They are going after Tom since they suspected that he raped Mayella because he is black and he was close

by when it happened. They do not stop and think about the other possibilities. Surprisingly Scout comes by to talk the whole mob out of it. Scout explains, “‘I go to school with Walter’...‘He’s in my grade,’ I said, ‘and he does right well. He’s a good boy,’ I added, ‘a real nice boy’” (205). She does this by letting him and the rest of the mob know that they are citizens of Maycomb. They are all the same and they should not be acting the way they are. Mobs are common in our real world just like protesters are. The act of calming down a mob would be very difficult both today and in the past. Evil is apparent when mobs form and cause damage, so for a little girl to persuade a mob to stop, you understand how there can actually good in them. By the two textual evidence stated, they show how both Good and Evil can coexist.
Boo Radley is known to be bad throughout the story, but he is actually a good person.

In the beginning of the story the reader is told that Boo is a very bad person. Multiple people say how bad of a person he is but the reader is not given much information about him. Calpurnia whispers, “‘There goes the meanest man ever God blew breath into’” (15). They say he is the meanest man to walk this earth, but they do not even know him. They just heard rumors about him. Towards the end of the novel he finally shows himself. He helps the kids without doing any harm. By the end of the book, the reader realizes that Boo is a good person and has no evil within him. He is in the bedroom with them because he is the one that saved them. He helps save Scout’s life but fails to save Jem’s. Lee writes, “Boo had drifted to a corner of the room, where he stood with his chin up, peering from a distance at Jem” (372). He went from being known as a nightmare to a hero in just a few

pages.
Mayella Ewell is a nice woman to Tom Robinson and Tom is a very kind to Mayella. Later in the story that changes. Mayella turns her back on Tom in a court case and it resulted in severe consequences for Tom. When Mayella goes up to the chair in front of the whole court, she is required to put her hand on the bible and swear an oath to tell the truth and only the truth. Atticus exclaims, “‘Miss Mayella, you’ve testified that the defendant choked and beat you—you didn’t say that he sneaked up behind you and knocked you cold, but you turned around and there he was...’” (249). Mayella denies the truth many times. Atticus knows that her father is the real criminal, but she will not tell the truth. She lies about coming on to Tom. Sadly, this happens in current day time, many times every year. There is also a good side to her. When Tom walks home from work he walks by their house and every so often Mayella asks for a hand. Mayella cries, “‘I said come here, nigger, and bust up this chiffarobe for me, I gotta nickel for you. He coulda done it easy enough, he could’” (241). She is very appreciative of Tom for helping her. The reader is told that he helps her multiple times. She even tries to give him a small tip for giving her a hand. From all three of these characters; Mr. Cunningham, Boo Radley and Mayella Ewell, it portrays how Good and Evil can coexist within people.
It is very possible for Good and Evil to be present in someone. Everyone, no matter their gender, race, or age, could have both Good and Evil in them. Mr. Cunningham, Boo Radley and Mayella all had good and evil shown in them throughout the novel. Readers just need to look a little deeper to find each one. Not everyone is perfect. People must deal with our’s and other’s imperfections. If everyone was accepting of each other's differences, there would be less evil in our world.