Mockingbirds
"I‘d rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you‘ll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it‘s a sin to kill a mockingbird." - Atticus Finch to Jem and Scout (Chapter 10, p. 99)
- title does not have a direct connection to the storyline - still, it has a tremendous amount of symbolic meaning
- mockingbird represents the concept of innocence
- killing a mockingbird equals to killing innocence
- throughout the novel, many innocent (mockingbird) characters are being destroyed by evil forces
- Tom being shot is compared to the senseless slaughter of songbirds, since he is held responsible for a crime he did not commit
- harming Boo Radley would equal to shooting a mockingbird according to Scout since all he does is protect both Jem and Scout from any harm and leave trinkets for them
- Miss Maudie‘s explanation: “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but . . . sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” (Chapter 10, p. 99f)
- with Scout and Jem‘s last name being Finch (a type of bird), they both are depicted as specifically vulnerable in the sphere of racism-driven Maycomb
- they are exposed to pure evil although they are just children
- learn that life treats innocents very unfair (Tom‘s trial, Dolphus Raymonds exclusion from white society)
- ultimately, they even feel the evil that is directed towards innocent people themselves as Bob Ewell attempts to kill them
Boo Radley
"People said he went out at night when the moon was down, and peeped in windows. When people‘s azaleas froze in a cold snap, it was because he had breathed on them. Any stealthy small crimes committed in Maycomb were his work. [...] A Negro would not pass the Radley Place at night, he would cut across to the sidewalk opposite and whistle as he walked." - Scout Finch (Chapter 1, p. 9)
- the Radley family in general are outsiders to the Maycomb society (they don‘t attend church, don‘t interact with neighbours)
- the Radley place is dangerous and evil - the pecan nuts that fall on school grounds from Radley trees are poisonous, balls that find their way to the Radley yard are lost forever
- Boo Radley represents the people‘s tendency to prejudice others; he is mythologized and people are afraid of him in general since he belongs to the category of unknown things
- he is considered a malevolent phantom and a haint by Scout and is also used as a scapegoat for everything going wrong in town
- Boo does not seem real to Scout since he is never being seen; hence, she believes he does not exist
- yet, he becomes more present, when he leaves Scout and Jem little gifts and when he fixes Jem‘s pants
- after having rescued Scout, she deems him fully human which is also a catalyst for Scout growing into an understanding and empathetic individual
- he represents a mockingbird: although he has suffered so much pain (from his cruel father but also from the misjudging townspeople), he shows the purity of his heart when he interacts with Jem and Scout, also by saving them
The Mad Dog
"If your father‘s anything, he‘s civilized in his heart. Marksmanship‘s a gift of God, a talent - oh, you have to practice to make it perfect, but shootin‘s different from playing the piano or the like. I think maybe he put his gun down when he realized that God had given him an unfair advantage over most living things. I guess he decided he wouldn‘t shoot till he had to, and he had to today." - Miss Maudie to Scout and Jem (Chapter 10, p. 108f)
- allegedly random incident: Atticus once shot a dog with rabies since no one else (even sheriff Heck Tate) was courageous enough to deal with it and stand up to it
- for Jem and Scout, this meant that he was no longer the sensible, respectable, virtuous character he used to be
- remarkable correlation between the dog Tim Johnson and the African-American Tom Robinson
- just as he dealt with the mad dog, Atticus stands up to defend Tom Robinson, since nobody else would do it
- the shooting of the dog foreshadows Tom‘s eventual fate
