Saturday, January 23, 2016

What are some objects I could bring into class that are symbolically relevant to To Kill a Mockingbird? Thanks!

There are so many symbolic elements of this classic novel
by Harper Lee.

You might start by considering bringing something into
class that relates to the items that Scout and Jem found in the old tree by their house.
These items include some chewing gum, an old stopwatch, and a two shiny coins, and the
tree serves as a valuable conduit of communication between child and their unseen
playmate in Boo Radley throughout much of the novel's first act. The fact that the items
are left in the tree throughout much of the children's non-interaction with Boo Radley
symbolizes the fact that the mysterious next door neighbor is, as his name suggests,
almost something of a ghost; never fully seen, but never fully
absent.

Other items of symbolic importance would include some sort of
replica of the eponymous mockingbird to which the title alludes. The novel is loaded
with themes of imprisonment and escape, and the mockingbird -- as Atticus tells Scout --
is symbolic of a creature that is guiltless and deserving of a free and unfettered
existence. Mockingbirds do nothing to harm anyone, choosing instead to spend their days
singing songs for all to hear. Accordingly, "it is a sin to kill a mockingbird," and in
many ways, the mockingbird is a metaphor for all creatures who are "cooped in" and
persecuted by those around them in spite of their having done nothing but good in
return. Many critics suggest that both Tom Robinson and Atticus Finch are, in their own
respective fashions, "mockingbirds" of the post-Reconstruction era South in which the
story is set.

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