Changing Attitudes in To Kill a Mockingbird - Research Paper Example

Changing Attitudes in To Kill a Mockingbird In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, originally published in 1960, readers are introduced to Atticus Finch and his family as he works to defend an innocent black man in a southern town. Briefly, the story is that of a small town lawyer (Atticus Finch) who is hired to defend a black man of the community who is accused of raping a white woman as told from the innocent viewpoint of the lawyer’s 9-year-old daughter, Scout. In Lee’s story, Atticus proves the black man is innocent of all charges while implicating that any damage done was actually caused by the girl’s abusive father, but the defendant, Tom Robinson, is found guilty anyway by the all-white jury. In the meantime, the children have made friends with their eccentric mentally handicapped neighbor, Boo Radley, who has spent the majority of his life imprisoned by his parents in the house next door and Scout’s brother has spent several afternoons reading to a mean old lady of the neighborhood, Mrs. Dubose, on his father’s orders. Feeling shamed by the revelations of the trial, the father of the raped girl determines to murder Atticus’ children in retaliation, but is instead killed in the dark by the mentally handicapped eccentric who has been keeping an eye out for the children. Although Robinson is killed while attempting to break out of prison when he might have gone free had the case proceeded to a higher court, Atticus and the town’s sheriff conjure a story about the death of the evil father that leaves no suspicion of foul play on the part of Boo Radley, keeping him out of the court system completely. He does this in recognition that Boo, like Tom Robinson and Mrs. Dubose, is a mockingbird. In the context of the book, the mockingbird is used to symbolize something innocent and without a true voice of its own. In the real world, the mockingbird is quietly helpful as it feeds on the grubs and other harmful insects that often damage needed crops but has no true song of its own. Instead, the mockingbird sings a compilation of songs that it hears in its environment. “The literature contains countless stories of notable imitations. One New York City bird reproduced perfectly the beep-beep-beep of a backhoe in reverse, while another threw a high school football game into confusion by mimicking the referee’s whistle. Yet another ‘joined the National Symphony Orchestra during an outdoor concert in Washington D.C.’” (Tveten 292). This reveals it to be a bird capable of appreciating its environment as well as a bird without a true voice of its own. It is known only by its appearance and the way in which it is defined by others. Its borrowed voice, appreciation and participation in its environment and its changeable nature make this a bird that deserves recognition and respect. This concept is found in the book when Atticus tells Scout and Jem, “I’d rather you shoot at tin cans in the backyard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (Lee 69). This bird is used to symbolize Tom Robinson, Mrs. Dubose and Boo Radley because they are all three known mostly by outer appearances, through the voices of others and yet are seen to have complex, changeable natures. Tom Robinson Tom Robinson fits all the criteria of a mockingbird as he is seen throughout the novel. He is quickly determined to be guilty of the charges brought against him by the people of the town simply because of his outer appearance and their preconceptions regarding his race. This is made clear through the words of Atticus when he attempts to prepare Scout for what’s coming. He knows he’s going to lose the trial in Maycomb County and why when he tells Scout, “Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win” (Lee 76). Although Tom is on trial, understanding of the factors involved is only offered from a very distanced perspective. “She said Atticus tried to explain things to him, and that he must do his best not to lose hope because Atticus was doing his best to get him free” (Lee 234). To ensure these complications based upon appearance alone are clear, Miss Maudie speaks directly to the point when she’s talking with Aunt Alexandra in the kitchen. “Have you ever thought of it this way, Alexandra? Whether Maycomb knows it or not, we’re paying him [Atticus] the highest tribute we can pay a man. We trust him to do right.” Aunt Alexandra asks, “Who?” and Miss Maudie answers, “The handful of people in this town who say that fair play is not marked White Only; the handful of people who say a fair trial is for everybody, not just us” (Lee 236). Tom’s character is already identified by the town simply on the strength of his appearance as seen through Atticus’ assessment of their situation, but Miss Maudie makes it clear that some individuals were able to look beyond the appearance to the possibilities inside. Tom is seen throughout the story to have a lack of voice even though he continues to try to tell his version of events. Despite the fact that Bob Ewell represents the most pessimistic view of the white man, his word is given much more weight in his society simply because he is a white man. A comparison between the two men illustrates what should have been an obvious reversal of character assessment. Ewell is a deplorable man, consistently drunk, unwilling to provide for his family and violently abusive. His low status within society is largely the result of his own unwillingness to do anything to make things better for himself or his family. “The first thing was that Mr. Bob Ewell acquired and lost a job in a matter of days and probably made himself unique in the annals of the nineteen-thirties: he was the only man I ever herd of who was fired from the WPA for laziness” (Lee 248). These character traits are somewhat known to the community at large even before the trial as are the opposite traits found in Tom. Tom has demonstrated himself to be a hard-worker, dependable, loving and compassionate toward his fellow man. It is only because his views on the proper social hierarchy are shared by his community that the claims Ewell makes against Robinson make it all the way to court. “Based on the documented fame of racist writers, the success of race pandering politicians and the frequency of racist images in popular culture, we can only conclude that virulent racism was solidly entrenched in the structure of southern society” (Beck & Tolnay 122). The most eloquent speech Tom makes to the courtroom in terms of actually affecting the people there is equally silent as Atticus proves, through the display of Tom’s lifeless arm, that Tom could not have committed the rape. The complex character of Tom and his case are also discovered throughout the storyline. Although Tom seems to be a law-abiding, upright citizen, he does have a record of having caused some trouble in the past. Although he seems to trust Atticus, he makes an attempt to escape on his own after losing his first trial. “Tom, tired of the white man’s chances, decides to take his own; he is shot while trying to flee prison.  A townsperson compares his death to the ‘senseless slaughter of songbirds,’ picking up on an earlier theme in which Scout is told that ‘it is a sin to kill a mockingbird [because they] don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us’ (p.98)” (Glenn 2008). This is again comparable to Bob Ewell’s actions following the trial. Even though he won, he admits his own guilt in his attack upon Atticus’ children. “Bob intimidates Tom’s widow, burgles the judge’s home, and attacks Scout and Jem on their way home from a Halloween pageant” (Glenn 2008). While Tom is innocent, he behaves in the end as if guilty and while Bob is deemed faultless, he proves complicity in his response. All of this comes together to help convince Atticus in the end that sometimes following strict legal procedure is like shooting a mockingbird. Mrs. Debose Like Tom, Mrs. Dubose is judged largely because of her external appearance. From the outside looking in, it appears that Mrs. Dubose is the meanest woman alive. “Mrs. Dubose is a mean, racist old woman who lives on the same block as the Finches. She terrorizes the children by yelling at them from her porch … As the trial approaches, Mrs. Dubose becomes meaner and tells the children that their father, Atticus, is a nigger-lover” (Howard, 2009). These insults finally push Jem to his breaking point and he destroys all of her prized flowers in a moment of pure rage. She is ninety years old plus and knows she is dying. Mostly invalid, she has a young girl stay with her to care for her, making her appear both highly unpleasant and yet defenseless, preventing any true means of retaliation. As punishment for destroying the flowers, Jem is sentenced to go read to her for a certain amount of time each day but the old woman keeps extending the time. Rather than acknowledging the injustice, Atticus doesn’t permit Jem to stop the reading sessions. “… son, I told you that if you hadn’t lost your head I’d have made you go read to her. I wanted you to see something about her — I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do” (Lee 112). Following her death, Jem learns that Mrs. Dubose had been addicted to morphine as a pain reliever and it had been making her crazy. It was this drug that caused her to lose control of her tongue while years of social conditioning have made it difficult for her to understand the new ways. Realizing the effects the drug has had on her, Mrs. Dubose’s goal is to rid herself of the drug before she dies. She uses Jem’s reading time to distract her from the pain a little longer each day until she has broken the addiction. Thus, she also represents a character without any true voice of her own yet still manages to find true expression through the voices of others. In her rants against the children, Mrs. Dubose reveals the tremendous degree to which she is a prisoner to the ideals of a generation ago. She expresses extreme pessimism regarding the breakdown of society in her constant disapproval of Scout as well as in her comments regarding the proper behavior of various members of society. Her assessments reveal her deep belief in what has come to be known as the Cult of True Womanhood that was unofficially enforced emerging from prior to the Civil War as an indication of social status. “The attributes of True Womanhood, by which a woman judged herself and was judged by her husband, her neighbors and society, could be divided into four cardinal virtues – piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity … Without them, no matter whether there was fame, achievement or wealth, all was ashes. With them, she was promised happiness and power” (Welter 152). Scout’s tomboyish behavior runs exactly counter to these ideals and Mrs. Dubose cannot see this as anything other than the fall of yet another great family to the degradation of the post-war age. Her racism is apparent as she yells at the children regarding their father’s case, “what has this world come to when a Finch goes against his raising … Your father’s no better than the niggers and trash he works for” (Lee 102). Despite her hostility, there is a great deal of effort put forth on Mrs. Dubose’s part to overcome these aspects of her life as she struggles to overcome her addiction. Boo Radley Boo Radley is a very ghost-like figure throughout the story as he drifts just out of focus on the edge of the children’s awareness. His appearance is described as extremely pale as a result of his long-term imprisonment and his behavior is seen to be shrinking as he tends to avoid much contact with others. What the town knows of Boo’s history would not encourage them to judge him any more justly than they had Tom Robinson. As the story is revealed, the elder Radleys locked up their son after he participated in some relatively petty crime as a teenager. While the other boys involved were punished through the courts and then returned to their lives, Boo was never permitted to join in with society again. This type of total social isolation was only possible in the old south and demonstrates the degree to which the elders of society typically expected total obedience of their offspring, a striking difference against the way in which Atticus raises his children. Through this relentless isolation, including the cruel concrete placed in the knot of the tree to block communication between the lonely man locked indoors and the inquisitive children outside, the family indicates a strong disapproval and mistrust of the outer world as a whole. In many ways, they represent the family in the story Scout tries to relate to her father at the end of the novel in which the people are so afraid of new people and ideas that they persecute others or lock themselves away from others without ever really getting the chance to know them. In the book, Boo Radley literally is not given a voice. Throughout the novel, it would be surprising to discover he’d said more than 10 words. However, like the other characters that represent the mockingbird, he proves to have found a means of communicating. This starts as he leaves gum, pennies and soap dolls for the children to find in a small hollowed out knot in the tree outside his house. When Jem tears his pants and leaves them behind in his panic after trying to spy on Boo, Boo carefully mends them and leaves them folded up and waiting for Jem’s return. Of course, at the end of the novel, he puts his own life on the line to save the lives of the children when they are attacked by Bob Ewell. Through these types of actions, Boo proves himself to be a kind and gentle man by nature with a fragile, sensitive nature. Originally, the children are afraid of him because of all the stories they hear about him from the people in Maycomb such as the story Miss Stephanie tells of the time he was sitting in the living room cutting up a magazine and suddenly “drove the scissors into his parent’s leg, pulled them out, wiped them on his pants, and resumed his activities,” giving an impression of insanity. After hearing stories like these, the children consider him to be evil. Reality, however, illustrates how unsubstantiated these assumptions really were. In reality, no one knew anything about Boo Radley. “At the end of the book, Scout finally meets Boo Radley after he helps her and Jem escape Mr. Ewell. She finds that her beliefs about him are not true. Essentially, she finds the songs that the neighbors were ‘putting into his mouth’ were not true” (Theme 2007). Although he doesn’t seem to have a voice, Scout and Boo are able to understand each other perfectly in the end. The same issues that face Tom Robinson and Mrs. Dubose can as easily be applied to Boo Radley. The difference here is in the recognition on the part of Atticus and Sheriff Tate regarding this character. Once he finally realizes that it was Boo Radley, not Jem, who drove the knife into Bob Ewell’s abdomen, Atticus realizes how the elements of appearance, external voice and internal nature can combine in this case and will lead to another mockingbird’s death. Following the lessons of Mrs. Dubose and Tom Robinson, Atticus concedes the point Sheriff Tate is making and agrees to the officer’s assessment of the death as an accident. Sheriff Tate tells Atticus, “I’m not a very good man, sir, but I am sheriff of Maycomb County.  Lived in this town all my life an’ I’m goin’ on forty-three years old.  Know everything that’s happened here since before I was born.  There’s a black boy dead for no reason, and the man responsible for it’s dead.  Let the dead bury the dead this time, Mr. Finch” (Lee 290). Atticus realizes that the town’s conception of Boo will again override justice to no benefit to anyone. At the same time, the very shy and retiring Boo, characterized throughout the novel as being entirely powerless, emerges as a hero in his own right. “Boo Radley should get more recognition than he normally does as a white anti-racist hero. Comparing Boo to a ninja might be a stretch, but he did overcome his reluctance to join the battle against racism” (Hang Back 2009). Again, the mockingbird characteristics of being judged by appearances and lacking a voice are peeled back to reveal a complex character struggling with numerous internal and external complications. With all three of these characters one can trace a similar theme of social invisibility as they are each judged based upon their outward appearance and the external assessments made of them by the community at large. All three characters are negatively assessed because they don’t meet up with current social expectations or allotted roles, yet each demonstrates that they have found a form of expression that enables their complex nature some recognition. Tom Robinson is judged and silenced by his race yet he is finally heard because of the tragedy of his case and the legacy of kindness he left behind. Mrs. Dubose is judged by her peers and her own upbringing and ‘silenced’ by her gender but she manages to at least partially overcome these issues to die with dignity and drug-free. Boo Radley is judged by his lack of appearance and silenced by his family yet still discovers a way to connect with the children next door. In each case, the individual cannot be held fully responsible for where they are in life and yet they continue to struggle against the odds for something beautiful, just like the mockingbird. Works Cited Beck, E.M. & Stewart E. Tolnay. “Violence Toward African Americans in the Era of the White Lynch Mob.” Ethnicity, Race and Crime. Darnell Felix Hawkins (Ed.). New York: Suny Press, 1995: pp. 121-144. Glenn, Richard A. “To Kill a Mockingbird: Review.” Vol. 18, N. 4, (April 2008). July 1, 2009 “Hang Back Like Boo Radley During Discussions of Race.” Stuff White People Do. (May 28, 2009). July 1, 2009 Howard, Melissa. “Strong Women in To Kill a Mockingbird.” Suite 101. (April 15, 2009). July 1, 2009 Lee, Harper To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Warner Books, 1982. “Theme of the Book.” Live Thunder. (February 2, 2007). July 1, 2009 Tveten, John L. The Birds of Texas. Fredericksburg, TX: Shearer Publishing, 1993. Welter, Barbara. “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860.” American Quarterly. Vol. 18, N. 2, P. 1. 1966, pp. 151-74. Read More