Extended Response: To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

TKAM Extended Response Essay

Have you ever wondered if it would be a sin to kill a mockingird? In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, a young girl named scout realizes the truth of the evolving world around her as segregation becomes more prominent in her life. She sees the wrongfulness of her hometown of Maycomb, Alabama accusing an innocent black man of rape when he committed no such crime and learns a valuable lesson of the meaning “it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird”. The novel To Kill a Mockingbird has many characters who symbolize a mockingbird in the title phrase, such as Boo Radley and Tom Robinson.

The meaning of the phrase “to kill a mockingbird” is best understood as a mockingbird is a harmless creature who does nothing to hurt anything except sing, and to kill one would be pointless and sinful. A character that resembles this phrase is Tom Robinson. For example, during Atticus’s statement to the jury, hes says,”’

The state has not produced one iota of medical evidence to the effect that the crime Tom Robinson is charged with ever took place.’” Robinson is described as a mockingbird as he is deliberatley not guilty with the crime but is, in the end, proven guilty and eventually shot to death in a sprint for freedom. This once again proves the title’s meaning of to kill a mockingbird, as an innocent man was killed in cold blood.
Another character that supports the title’s meaning of “to kill a mockingbird” is Boo Radley.

He could be described as a mockingbird in a number of ways. For example, he had been accused of being the “town creep” after not leaving his house in forty years after a situation with the law, and rumor had it that he had stabbed his father in cold blood. Many people mocked him, including Scout, Jem, and Dill, for example,”Jem parceled out roles : I was Mrs. Radley, and all I had to do was sweep the porch. Jem, naturally, was Boo: he went under the front steps and shrieked and howeled from time to time.” He was a mockingbird because, in the end he saved the lives of the very children that mocked him ,and killed their attacker, as he was an innocent, fragile and kind man who was only a recluse. The sherriff eventually convinced the father of the two attacked children, Atticus, that to send Boo to jail, would be a prime example of the phrase”to kill a mockingbird”. The title reflects back to this as to judge him was wrongful as he was

harmless.
In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, there are many characters who symbolize mockingbirds as shown in the title’s meaning of “it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird as they do nothing but sing.” Boo Radley and Tom Robinson both resemble mockingbirds as they are innocent creatures who are wrongly accused of being something they’re not, and in Tom’s case, is killed. In conclusion, to “judge a book by it’s cover” or “to kill a mockingbird” is wrong and is a good lesson as to do to others as what you would want done to you.