To Kill A Mocking Bird

Some of the most important and powerful themes in literature are developed in death scenes. The novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, is set in the 1930s town of Maycomb, Alabama, a town with a lot of prejudice and racism. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee shows various themes, such as courage and racism, through death scenes. Mrs. Lafayette Dubose was one of the characters Lee uses to demonstrate the theme of courage. Mrs. Dubose was a very sick elderly person and her doctor prescribed her morphine to deal with the pain. Soon she became addicted to the morphine. Her doctor told her that she only had a few more months to live and that she didn’t want to die an addict. Rather than dying as an addict, she stopped taking the morphine and was in constant pain. Jem’s punishment for destroying her camellia’s was to read to her every afternoon. Mrs. Dubose picked this punishment because she needed something to take her mind off of the pain. Eventually Mrs. Dubose died, but not as an addict. It took great courage for her to take herself off the medication and deal with the consequences. Another character Lee uses to show courage through is Arthur “Boo” Radley, who kills Bob Ewell. Boo Radley had been trapped inside his house most of his life and for him to come out and kill Bob Ewell shows he was a brave man. Bob Ewell was trying to harm Scout and Jem when Boo Radley showed up and killed him. Sadly, he had already broken Jem’s arm and he was unconscious. Boo Radley displays courage because, in spite of knowing what the town of Maycomb already says and thinks about him, he goes and kills a man to protect kids he had only made contact with through gifts in a tree and a blanket he put around Scout. He had never spoken to the children until that night.
Tom Robinson was falsely accused of rape. Lee shows the theme of racism through this character. Tom Robinson was accused by a white woman, therefore he really had no chance of winning his case. In Alabama a white man’s word always beats a black man's. When in reality Bob Ewell was the person beating Mayella Ewell and blaming Tom Robinson for it. Bob Ewell walked in on Mayella trying to take advantage of Tom, called her a whore and threatened to kill her. Tom Robinson only helped Mayella; he helped her with chores around the house and never asked for anything in return. He was just a generous man who, in spite of a lot of evidence, was guilty, but whose only crime was to be born black in the early 19th century in Alabama. Tom Robinson was shot seventeen times by the police because he was trying to escape from jail.
Harper Lee also uses Tom Robinson to demonstrate a loss of innocence. An innocent man was charged with rape and killed, even though Atticus had already proven that Tom Robinson couldn’t have committed the crime because of his useless left arm, which was torn apart by a cotton gin when he was younger. Also, Tom would never have harmed Mayella or any other person. Tom Robinson had never harmed a person in his life. To have a person who he had only ever wanted to help accuse him of rape must have been a horrible thing.
To sum up, To Kill a Mockingbird’s death scenes each have significance. They represent specific themes: courage, racism, and loss of innocence. Lee demonstrated courage by Mrs. Dubose, who decided to deal with terrible pain, rather than die as a morphine addict; and Arthur "Boo" Radley, a shy and lonely man who kills Bob Ewell to protect children he barely knows. Harper Lee demonstrates racism through Tom Robinson, a black man accused of rape by a white girl who he probably considered his friend. Although he is innocent, Tom is considered guilty by almost all of the townspeople. Finally, Lee also uses Robinson, a mockingbird, to demonstrate a loss of innocence.