Theme Of Power In To Kill A Mockingbird

Words: 1545
Pages: 7

“It’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn’t hurt you.” In Harper's compelling story, To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem and Scout grow in a world full of countless injustices going on around them and they still need to stay strong to what their father has taught them. The three most important themes in To Kill A Mockingbird are an Illusion of Power, Good versus Bad and Growing up.
In the 1930’s and still now white people act ignorantly in the knowledge that black and white people are equal. White people believe that they are better than black people and have a false illusion that they should more power than them. Many white men in this story follow the lead of everyone
…show more content…
Atticus is the example of good in this story and Mr. Ewell and is an example of evil in this story because he believes even innocent people shall be proven guilty. "It was just him I couldn't stand," "That old Mr. Gilmer doin' him thataway, talking so hateful to him.. It was the way he said it made me sick, plain sick…. The way that man called him 'boy' all the time an' sneered at him, an' looked around at the jury every time he answered... It ain't right, somehow it ain't right to do 'em that way. Hasn't anybody got any business talkin' like that—it just makes me sick.” Throughout the whole story the wrongs that are produced are seen. Tom Robinson, a respectable black man is proven guilty of a crime he didn’t even do, because of Mr. Ewell’s anger to Mayella his daughter. Throughout all of the questioning Tom is treated with disrespect and rudeness by Mr. Gilmer. Even though this respectable man did nothing, the wrong that Mayella did was so severe that her father and her both were forced to dispose of the evidence by getting the jury to prove Tom guilty. In this story the people of Maycomb gossip so intensely about Boo Radley that he is thought of a monster, even though people don’t even know if the rumors said are true. “To my way of thinkin', Mr. Finch, taking the one man who's done you and this town a great service an' draggin' him with his shy ways into the limelight- to me, that's a sin. It's a sin and I'm not about to have it on my head. If it was any other man, it'd be different. But not this man, Mr. Finch." Boo Radley who is just a shy man, represents a mockingbird, someone who only helps others and doesn’t hurt them. Boo only left his home and left his shyness behind to save Jem and Scout because he has a relationship with them even though they never have met before. He gives them the gifts in the tree, just as a mockingbird gives people music, and