Racism has been a problem since the beginning of time and Harper Lee emphasizes this in To Kill a Mockingbird. When Lee published this book in 1960, there was segregation of the blacks and whites. She grew up knowing that she could not go to school with colored people because it was seen as wrong. In the book, she described different types of people there would be in a community and helps the reader see this through symbolism. Harper Lee connects Maycomb's problems to three symbols throughout the book: the red geraniums, the azaleas, and the snowman.
First, the red geraniums are the symbol of love, desire, and beauty (Frink). In To Kill A Mockingbird, red geraniums are a symbol for Mayella’s desire to be beautiful and her desire for love. With Mayella’s desire for love caused her to make advancements on Tom Robinson. Miss Maudie declared, "Against the fence, in a line, were six chipped-enamel slop jars holding brilliant red geraniums, cared for as tenderly as if they belonged to Miss…show more content… For example, as racist as this may sound, in the snowman scene when they were creating the snowman, the mud, or the base represented the blacks and the snow represented the whites, and since they combined the mud and snow together because there was not enough snow, it symbolizes the whites and blacks joining together. That symbolized the fact that every single person is indeed, a person, or that everybody is human. Being a different race or color does not make you any less or more of a human. Scout says, “Jem, I ain’t ever heard of a nigger snowman”(Lee 89). She is a very naive and unwitting kid, but it's not her fault at all. It shows not growing up racist but in a racist community will give off racist moments because of how common it is. Also, the making of the snowman symbolized Atticus trying to win the Tom Robinson trial because it’s shows how a black man can be pure as
