Good _______ boys and Miss Arentz, Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mocking Bird depicts various ideas of Justice and Injustice using techniques such as plot structure, characterisation, symbolism, perspective and the Narrative voice.
The Narrative voice of Scout is a key literary technique Lee uses to convey the many injustices in To Kill A Mockingbird. By Lee showing the events through a child’s unbiased and innocent eyes she is able to to give a clear and uninfluenced look into events. On page 232-233 the Narrative voice of Scout describes the court case as having a ‘dreamlike’ quality, this shows that the court case overwhelms and confuses a child as from her objective point of view it is clear that Tom Robinson is innocent and there should have been no court process to start with.
Harper Lee also uses the symbolism of the mockingbird to convey the injustice of the death of Tom Robinson to the killing of a Mockingbird which Atticus describes as “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy”. This quote from Atticus explains that mockingbirds are innocent birds that are often discriminated against just like the people of Tom Robinsons skin colour although they do wrong nothing to others, and in Tom Robinson’s case only help.
Lee uses the characterisation of key personnel in To Kill a Mockingbird to show justice and injustice, with the main example of this being the just and fair characterisation of Atticus. A major example in the book of this being in chapter 30 where Heck Tate insists on calling the death of Bob Ewell an accident however Atticus being the pinnacle of justice argues thinking that his son Jem is responsible for the crime and should get no special treatment and should have to face the full grunt of the law, this example and the way Atticus is characterised consistently throughout the book shows one way Lee conveys clearly Justice.
To conclude Harper Lee’s famous novel To Kill A mockingbird, there are many characters some full of justice like Atticus, Tom Robinson and Boo Radley, and those who are the pinnacle of injustice like Bob Ewell,Mayella Ewell and the jury who sentenced Tom Robinson. Lee conveys the justice and injustice through many ways including the techniques I have used throughout this speech, Thankyou for listening
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