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A Prejudice Society in To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee

Decent Essays

To Kill a Mocking Bird follows Scout through her narration of life and witnesses the events that society produces. As Scout's understanding of the prejudice society she lives in grows her innocence is destroyed in the process. In her novel To Kill a Mocking Bird, Harper Lee symbolically uses Mocking Birds to show the destruction of innocence. A way Harper Lee presented the Mockingbird's role in society, was by asserting in the novel that to destroy its innocence, would be a sin and should not be allowed. By people in the society this view was taken because unlike "blue jays" (119) Atticus says, "…it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird" (119). It is later explained by Miss Maudie the reason why it is a sin to kill a mocking bird was because of their only positive impacts within a society and how they "don't eat up peoples gardens...nest in corn cribs" (119) but instead play a positive role and "sing their hearts out"(119). This gives the reader the notion that the mocking bird plays an innocent role in society and therefore its innocence should not be destroyed. Although as shown in the book, this is not the case. The characters seen as Mockingbirds innocence is greatly affected by the views society has and do not always fit in to society’s norms. Another way the mockingbird was used symbolically for its innocence was when it was used to contrast the prejudice views of society to the uncorrupted interpretations of the mockingbird. Scout and Jem often received prejudice

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