To Kill A Mockingbird And How It Relates To Innocence

"Atticus said to Jem one day, 'I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, 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.'"That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it."'Your father's right,' she said. 'Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'" - Atticus
This relates to the text throughout the whole story. It is the core of the entire book. Blue-jays are the bad guys. Mockingbirds are the good guys. The bad people in this world deserve to be ‘shot’ but some do get away, so they are hard to hit. Whereas mockingbirds are the good people, they are no harm to anything or anyone, and they are generous, humble, caring and just want to sing for us. Exactly like Boo Radley and Tom Robinson. They never meant any harm; they were just trying to help people that couldn’t help themselves, like Mayella Ewell; Tom felt sorry for her, and felt the need to help her, but she ruined that advantage of having someone to help her, and then went to court saying that he raped her when he didn’t. Mayella being the blue-jay that eats someone other innocent peoples gardens.
The symbolism of the mockingbird in this story is placed subtly throughout the book. The similarities of Boo and Tom are significant. Obviously and mentioned before, they are both the mockingbird in each plot line. And there is also a blue-jay that is the opposite of the mockingbird. It turns out to be that the blue-jay is the same person, who is Mr. Ewell. He tries to convince his daughter to not tell the judge or court that he abuses her, and also tries to kill the Finch children. He tries to ruin other people’s lives, quite like the bluebird that ‘ruins gardens and nests in corncribs’ although both cases go different directions and Tom dies and Boo has a victory and becomes a hero to the Finchs. The whole story merges together and the symbolism of the mockingbird in the book ties the knot in the middle.
The society of Maycomb is still grasping the fact of equality. It lacks seeing things from other people’s point of view. Atticus tries to teach this to Scout early on in her life. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”He explains this to her when Scout obviously isn’t looking inside the others person’s mind. This is also a base of the story, no one bothers to look into Boo Radley’s life and walk around in his skin. No one ever takes into consideration that all of the stories people make up may not be true, and that he’s different to what everyone thinks. But one person that truly understands is Atticus, he’s a wise man and learns a lot over the story by the case of Tom, as well as the children on the night of the attack, that Boo Radley is a courageous man defeating the ‘blue-jay’ Mr. Ewell.
Relating to the last paragraph, the society of Maycomb doesn’t understand equality in the form of black people or ‘niggers’ in the book. And that black people are still humans. In this case with Tom, he is more human than the Ewell’s. He tells the truth and is like the mockingbird by just singing for Mayella but then Mayella shoots down the mockingbird to save herself. Atticus is one of the only people who do have a passion in justice especially when he’s defending the case of Tom Robinson and that actually understands unusual people that not average people in the town do not understand. And the quote of ‘you can only understand someone if you’ve been in their skin and walked around in it’ is what the Maycomb town finally realised when Boo Radley the shy monster is actually the opposite of what everyone thought.
“Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that's why his hands were bloodstained—if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off. There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time.” – Jem’s description and what was thought Boo Radley was like before he came out of hiding. This is a prejudicial book. A lot of injustice, unfairness, judging and learning what's right from wrong. Negros for example are thought to be rebels, thieves, drunkards and liars. And Boo Radley is said to be a squirrel-eating-zombie-like-pervert. And at the end of the story it is all revealed that this is untrue. The book is teaching everyone a lesson that “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” And that judging people from their race or kind, or personality is pointless. Unless you know someone they cannot be judged.
The conclusion is that the whole book is based on the one thing. The symbolism of a bird as being one of the most insignificant things but it plays such a big part in the story. A small detail is while it is being based on a mockingbird, the main character – Scout’s last name also happens to be a bird. A finch. Finches are just like any other bird pest, just as the blue-jay though, which makes everyone the same, everyone equal. Especially since mockingbirds too are still birds. And Tom Robinson and Boo Radley are still humans.