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To kill a mocking bird 2 (Click to select text)
To kill a mocking bird "I'd rather you shoot at tin cans in the backyard, 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."(96). The above words are what Atticus Finch tells his children after they are given air-rifles for Christmas. In fact, the title of the classic novel by Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, was taken from this passage. At first glance, one may wonder why Harper Lee decided to name her book after what seems to be a rather insignificant excerpt. After careful study, however, one begins to see that this is just another example of symbolism in the novel. Harper Lee uses symbolism extensively throughout this story, and much of it refers to the problems of racism in the South during the early twentieth century. Harper Lee's effective use of racial symbolism and allegory can be seen by studying various examples from the book, namely the actions of the children, of the racist whites, and of Atticus Finch. One of the more effective allegories in the novel is the building of a snowman by Jem and Scout. There was not enough snow to make a snowman entirely out of snow, so Jem made a foundation out of dirt and then covered it with what snow they had. If the snowman was made completely out of snow, Jem's action would not be so significant. Scout is very surprised when she sees the brown snowman and she exclaims: "Jem, I ain't never heard of a nigger snowman." (72), and to this Jem replies: "He won't be black long." (72). Scout's words indicate the strange nature of the snowman which is half-black, half-white. Jem, however did not find it peculiar and he "scooped up some snow and began plastering it on". Gradually Mr. Avery turned white? (73). The symbol of the snowman, like every other symbol in literature, may have various interpretations depending on the reading of the individual. In the specific case the snowman can be seen in two ways. Firstly, this alteration from black to white can be considered as a merging of the two races into one, without any differences between them to separate them, an equality of black and white people. The change of colour (black to white) suggests the superficiality of the colour of the skin, which should not be a criterion for judging people and dividing them into categories. Atticus's praise of Jem's creation, "I didn't know how you were going to do it, but from now on I'll never worry about what'll become of you, son, you'll always have an idea" (73), can be extended to mean that Atticus approves his son's views. Thus, the idea evoked to the reader is that people who carry healthy beliefs and reject racism and prejudice, like Jem, will most likely succeed in their lives. An additional way of looking at the symbolism of the snowman is that it signifies miscegenation; marriage or sexual relations between people of different races. People at Maycomb county, both black and white, were very prejudiced against the idea of miscegenation and those who committed it and would immediately marginalise anyone who disregarded the general 'rule' and had sexual intercourse with a person of another race. The fear of marginalisation led Mayella Ewell to lie in court about the incident with Tom Robinson and this fear was also the reason her father beat her when he saw her making advances to a negro. Bob Ewell could never accept the fact that his daughter was thinking of giving herself to a black man and punished her severely for that. The best example of how everybody behaved towards mixed people is the case of Dolphus Raymont's children who were "half white, half coloured" (167). Jem uses the word 'sad' (167) when he refers to them because "they don't belong anywhere. Coloured folks won't have'em because they're half white; white folks won't have'em 'cause they're coloured, so they're just in betweens, don't belong anywhere" (167). On the contrary, Jem's combination of mud and snow declares that miscegenation can exist and that it does not have to be an 'in between' situation, but a reality. The next example of symbolism in the novel, the fire, is closely related to the symbol of the snowman. The night when the children had built the snowman, there was a fire in Miss Maudie's house. Scout's words, "at the front door, we saw fire spewing from Miss Maudie's dining-room windows. As if to confirm what we saw , the town siren wailed up the scale to a tremble pitch and remained there, screaming" (75), give the reader a clear picture of the situation that night. One of the effects of the fire, apart from burning down Miss Maudie's house of course, was that it turned the 'morphodite' (80) into a pile of dirt, after all the snow melted because of the heat. Taking for granted that the snowman is a symbol of equality between blacks and whites, then the fire, which was the cause for the melting down of the snowman, depicts the prejudice of the people of Maycomb, who strongly believe that blacks and whites are certainly not the same. Moreover, if the snowman is seen as a symbol of the bonding of the two races, here again prejudiced people, as the symbol of the fire suggests, object to this assertion as well, believing that a mixed child is, in fact, no better than a pure black one and that the two are, actually, one and the same. And this prejudice is so strong that it does not only refer to half negroes, but as Jem explains to Scout the day of Tom Robinson's trial, "around here once you have a drop of Negro blood, that makes you all black" (168). The most important fact concerning the symbolism of the fire, no matter which meaning the snowman has is that as fire is a stronger element than snow, in the same way prejudice overwhelms the humanitarian beliefs of a very small of people and, inevitably, it prevails. Jem's attempt to beat white racism is also obvious in the incident when he and Scout had to contradict the insults of Mrs Henry Lafayette Dubose. Mrs Dubose, among other things, said to the children that "your father's no better than the niggers and trash he works for" (108), a phrase which shows not only her views on the subject of Atticus defending a black man, but the views of the rest of the town. This was too much for Jem to tolerate, so as they were going by her house later that day, "Jem snatched [Scout's] baton and ran flailing wildly up the steps into Mrs Dubose's front yard? He did not begin to calm down until he had cut the tops off every camellia bush Mrs Dubose owned, until the ground was littered with green buds and leaves" (109). Since Camellia flowers are white, their destruction by Jem could symbolise his effort to destroy the prejudice of the white people against negroes. However, the only thing Jem manages to do is cause his father's anger and be punished for his action by reading to Mrs Dubose for a month. Jem also had to "work on'em (camellias) every Saturday and try to make'em grow back out" (111). The growing back of the flowers could have two interpretations. The first one is that prejudice cannot be defeated so easily and, once more, it prevails. Mrs Dubose says to Jem one afternoon: "Thought you could kill my Snow-on-the-Mountain, did you? Well Jessie says the top's growing back out. Next time you'll know how to do it right, won't you%
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