You may have heard the phrase often “it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird”, but what you might not know is that it actually comes from a discussion between two fictional characters. So, what does it mean to kill a mockingbird, and why is it a sin?
The phrase came from Harper Lee’s novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a story of innocents destroyed by evil. The mockingbird came to represent the idea of innocence. To kill a mockingbird is a sin because mockingbirds cause no harm to anyone or anything around them. Therefore, to kill a mockingbird means a loss of innocence.
For more information, keep on reading.
About The Author Of The Novel
Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama. Her full name was Nelle Harper Lee. In 1959, Harper Lee finished the manuscript for her Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller To Kill a Mockingbird.
Soon after, she helped fellow writer and friend Truman Capote compose an article for The New Yorker which would evolve into his nonfiction masterpiece, In Cold Blood.
In July 2015, Lee published her second novel, Go Set a Watchman, written before To Kill a Mockingbird and portrays the later lives of the characters from her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. She died in 2016 but her work remains a classic in literature.
To Kill A Mockingbird Is A Sin
To kill a mockingbird is a sin, according to two characters in To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus, and Miss Maudie. In Chapter 10, Miss Maudie explains her rationale as follows:
“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. Mockingbirds don’t eat up people’s gardens or nest in corncribs; they don’t do anything but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
Themes Of The Novel
The novel touches upon many thought-provoking themes in its plot. For instance;
The Coexistence Of Good And Evil
To Kill a Mockingbird’s most fundamental theme is the book’s investigation of the moral character of human beings—that is, whether individuals are inherently good or essentially evil.
This question is addressed in the novel by dramatizing Scout and Jem’s transition from a childhood innocence perspective, in which they assume people are good because they have never seen evil, to a more adult perspective, in which they have encountered evil and must incorporate it into their understanding of the world.
Prejudice
Throughout To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout witnesses and even supports several forms of prejudice, including classism, misogyny, and racism.
Regardless of the sort of prejudiced worldview, it considers people as stereotyped groupings, requires conformity, and fails to give individuals credit.
It repeatedly demonstrates how prejudice may be both closed-minded, deadly, and superficially benign—but in all circumstances, it’s stupid and misguided.
To Kill a Mockingbird is an attempt to examine some of the complications of life in a racist society. Scout and Jem must deal with everything from annoyance to lethal animosity as they discover how their family’s opposition to racial discrimination has pitted them against the community at large.
Social Inequality
Differences in social standing are mostly explored through Maycomb’s overcomplicated social order, the intricacies of which frequently perplex the children. The Finches are near the top of Maycomb’s social ladder, with the majority of the townspeople below them.
The Cunninghams, for example, are below the townspeople, while the Ewells are below the Cunninghams. But, despite its many wonderful features, the black community in Maycomb crawls beneath even the Ewells, allowing Bob Ewell to compensate for his own lack of status by pursuing Tom Robinson.
The book reveals that the strict social divisions that makeup so much of the adult world are both nonsensical and detrimental.
Morality
Because the novel’s greater moral concerns are explored through the eyes of children, the education of children is inextricably linked to the growth of all of the novel’s topics.
The plot of the story, in a sense, follows Scout’s moral education, and the idea of how children are educated—how they are taught to transition from childhood to adulthood—recurs throughout the novel (at the end of the book, Scout even says that she has learned practically everything except algebra).
This concept is most effectively handled in Atticus’ relationship with his children, as he devotes himself to instilling a social conscience in Jem and Scout. The school scenes are a sharp contrast to Atticus’ effective schooling of his children:
Why You Should Read To Kill A Mockingbird
Not only does the novel have a great and intriguing storyline, but it also has so much that you can take away from it once you have read it. It highlights major issues of racism and segregation and their impacts.
Whether you love reading classics or not, this book will make you fall in love with its simplicity, grace, and rational approach. Although the book was written in the 1960s, the issues it brings forth, like sexism, classism, and discrimination, make it relevant today as well.
The novel lays emphasis on empathy and not judging other people. Before judging someone, try and see things from their perspective. People are complicated, we are all different and have different desires, ambitions, and values.
Atticus respected other people’s opinions, even those who don’t agree with him, but he makes decisions about how to act based on his own moral compass. You have to follow your own moral code, regardless of what others believe.
It teaches bravery as we see Atticus defends Tom because it’s the right thing to do, whether or not others agree with him. He explains that you should never give up, especially when you’re standing up for what’s right.
Conclusion
The phrase, it is a sin to kill a mocking, bird is from a classic literary piece. The mockingbirds signify innocence thus, the phrase implies that it is a sin to destroy innocence.
