The Voice of Innocence

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A songbird's music can make anything turn to happiness. A mockingbird is something that does nothing to hurt anyone and symbolizes innocence and purity. In literature, characters can show innocence because they don’t harm anyone, they should help. These characters can represent a mockingbird while other characters can represent the evil. Harper Lee uses mockingbirds in her story to fight the evil in the story. All it does is sing for people so it would be a sin to kill it. In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, Jem Finch is the voice of innocence while Boo Radley doesn’t bother anybody and Tom Robinson is an innocent person, therefore they all represent Mockingbirds.

Boo Radley lives alone and doesn’t do anything to anyone, and doesn’t bother anybody. He minds his own business and it would be "a sin" to do anything that would disturb him. He is not the bad, mean, squirrel eating guy that the town thinks he is. He is not what Maycomb thinks he is and actually saves Jem and Scout from being killed. "Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time... it's because he wants to stay inside” (304). Jem said this to Scout because he knows why he wants to stay inside. Having seen everything that has been going on in Maycomb Boo chooses to stay out of all of the evil and doesn’t harm anybody. When Boo see the kids being attacked by Bob Ewell he is the innocence that fights the evil and Boo kills him. Mr. Heck Tate tries to tell Atticus that Mr. Ewell fell on his knife and killed himself. He implies that Boo stabbed him. Atticus needed to be cheered up because he didn’t know what to do. So Scout kissed him and said, “Wel...

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...upset because he knew that the verdict was wrong. It was especially upsetting because Atticus was so invested in the case and he argued for Tom because it was the right thing to do, no matter what people said about it. Jem is the voice of innocence in the novel.

Boo Radley and Tom Robinson are both innocent individuals while Jem is the voice of innocence, thus all three represent mockingbirds. Harper Lee uses the title To Kill A Mockingbird because the evil in Maycomb are killing the innocent people like Tom and Boo. All these characters progress through the book to show their innocence. Boo Radley doesn’t harm anybody and saves Jem and Scout at the end while Tom was guilty from the trial even though it was obvious it was innocent. Jem stood up for Tom after the verdict was announced stressing his innocence. The mockingbird comes to represent the idea of innocence.

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