Harper Lee Essay Collection

To Kill a Mockingbird Summary (detailed)

When the trial is imminent, Aunt Alexandra shows up at the Finch home and announces that she's there to stay for the benefit of Jem and Scout. She and Atticus agree that Jem and Scout may need round-the-clock supervision during the public spectacle, and she believes that the children need more exposure to the propriety and traditions of their upstanding family. Aunt Alexandra also believes that Scout needs to be taught to be a perfect Southern lady who knows how to wear a dress, serve tea, and converse with other women. Dill runs away from his home, where his mother and new father don't seem interested in him, and stays in Maycomb for the summer of Tom's trial. The night before the trial, Tom is moved into the county jail, and Atticus, fearing a possible lynching, stands guard outside the jail door all night. Jem is concerned about him, and the three children sneak into town to find him. A group of men arrive, ready to cause some violence to Tom, and threaten Atticus in the process. At first Jem, Scout and Dill stand aside, but when she senses true danger, Scout runs out and begins to speak to one of the men, the father of one of her classmates in school. Her innocence brings the crowd out of their mob mentality, and they leave.

The trial pits the evidence of the white Ewell family against Tom's evidence. According to the Ewells, Mayella asked Tom to do some work for her while her father was out, and Tom came into their house and forcibly beat and raped Mayella until her father appeared and scared him away. Tom's version is that Mayella invited him inside, then threw her arms around him and began to kiss him. Tom tried to push her away. When Bob Ewell arrived, he flew into a rage and beat her, while Tom ran away in fright. According to the sheriff's testimony, Mayella's bruises were on the right side of her face, which means she was most likely punched with a left hand. Tom Robinson's left arm is useless due to an old accident, whereas Mr. Ewell leads with his left. "We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe- some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they're born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others- some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of men". Atticus appeals to the jury's sense of logic. By confining his argument to a more limited scope, that we are equal in the eyes of the law though certainly not in character, he gains more credibility. The situations of success he picks for this contention are dated, and indicative of the time period's notions of gender roles, but this is a realistic portrayal of how this argument would need to be framed. "But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal- there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court". Atticus means that no matter how smart you are, where you come from, what your social class is, everyone is (supposedly) equal in a court of law. Defendants have the same rights and are innocent until proven guilty. In a court of law there is supposed to be no division among status and no difference based on the color of your skin. Mayella Ewell lies on the witness stand because she is afraid of her father, Bob Ewell, and because she is humiliated by her own attraction to Tom Robinson. She tells the jury that Tom beat and raped her when, in fact, it was her father who beat her when he saw her hugging and kissing an African American. Her father told her what to say while on the stand and likely threatened to hurt her more if she refused. She told the jury what they wanted to hear, so it was an easy lie to tell. She lied to protect herself.

Given the evidence of reasonable doubt , Tom should go free, but after hours of deliberation, the Jury pronounces him guilty. Scout, Jem and Dill sneak into the courthouse to see the trial and sit in the balcony with Maycomb's black population. They are stunned at the verdict because to them, the evidence was so clearly in Tom's favor. "If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time. It's because he wants to stay inside". Jem is growing up and realizes that the myths about Boo are unlikely to be true. Jem has also grown distressed by the lack of honor in society, and realizes Boo might prefer to live alone rather than among corrupt men. The jury's decision to convict Tom Robinson for a crime he clearly did not commit plagues Jem, and many readers, as an intolerable miscarriage of justice. The most obvious reason justice isn't served is because the jury's overwhelming racism prevents Tom from getting a fair trial. Another reason the jury finds Tom guilty is because both Mayella Ewell and her father, Bob, both perjured themselves on the stand. In addition to the presumption of an impartial jury, the justice system operates on the assumption that witnesses will tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" after being sworn in to testimony. But both Mayella and Bob lied rather than admit that Mayella tried to kiss Tom. Tom's race, combined with the Ewells' lies, proved enough for the racist jury to find Tom guilty, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of Tom's innocence.

Though the verdict is unfortunate, Atticus feels some satisfaction that the jury took so long deciding. Usually, the decision would be made in minutes, because a black man's word would not be trusted. Atticus is hoping for an appeal, but unfortunately Tom tries to escape from his prison and is shot to death in the process. "They shot him... He was running. It was during their exercise period. They said he just broke into a blind raving charge at the fence and started climbing over. Right in front of them". Tom Robinson never harmed a soul, but was convicted and awaiting his appeal in a local prison. Atticus believes Tom hated being imprisoned for a crime he did not commit, and could not imagine going through another trial. Atticus believes the stress of the situation and the inevitability of struggle and pain led Tom to run.

Jem has trouble handling the results of the trial, feeling that his trust in the goodness and rationality of humanity has been betrayed. "I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the backyard, 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". "Your father's right... 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". Both Maudie and Atticus agree quite strongly that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird, an animal symbolic of Boo Radley and Tom Robinson, as neither have caused harm, and prove only to have pure hearts.

The phrase "it's a sin to kill a mockingbird" refers to intentionally and pointlessly destroying something that does no harm. The mockingbird is a songbird, not a pest, and it isn't a game bird. Killing a mockingbird serves no purpose, and therefore is an act of unnecessary cruelty. When the jury convicts Tom Robinson of rape despite the absence of physical evidence and despite Atticus's compelling defense, the jury is guilty of the same unnecessary cruelty. The jury specifically, and the town of Maycomb generally, destroy a good person who has never done harm simply because of the color of his skin. Though Tom is the symbolic mockingbird at the heart of the novel, he is not the only character who fits that description. Heck Tate also specifically describes Boo Radley as a mockingbird, in that he is a harmless person who is the victim of pointless cruelty. Unlike Tom Robinson, Boo Radley is not destroyed, though he does suffer greatly.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ewell threatens Atticus and other people connected with the trial because he feels he was humiliated. He tries to get his revenge one night while Jem and Scout are walking home from the Halloween play at their school. He follows them home in the dark, then runs at them and attempts to kill them with a large kitchen knife. Jem breaks his arm, and Scout, who is wearing a confining ham shaped wire costume and cannot see what is going on, is helpless throughout the attack. The elusive Boo Radley stabs Mr. Ewell and saves the children. Finally, Scout has a chance to meet the shy and nervous Boo. At the end of this fateful night, the sheriff declares that Mr. Ewell fell on his own knife so Boo, the hero of the situation, won't have to be tried for murder. Scout walks Boo home and imagines how he has viewed the town and observed her, Jem and Dill over the years from inside his home. Boo goes inside, closes the door, and she never sees him again. When Jem and Scout set off through the woods to the high school for the harvest pageant, they begin a journey that is "long" in a figurative sense, for the events that occur that night will change their lives forever. As Jem and Scout walk home that night, two figures emerge from the shadows, each with their own intentions. First, Bob Ewell violently attacks Jem and Scout, but then Boo Radley appears and saves the children. This climactic night unites the novel's two major plot lines: the mystery of Boo Radley and the second tragic outcome of the trial—another senseless death.

In the first sentence of the novel, Scout says that Jem broke his arm. She starts to explain what happened but says that she needs to go back and provide the necessary context in order for the story to make sense. The rest of the novel is the background context for Jem's broken arm. At the end of the novel Bob Ewell, who has suffered as a result of Atticus's defense of Tom Robinson, attacks Jem and Scout on their way home from the Halloween pageant. Jem breaks his arm in the struggle. The story of a broken arm serves as a narrative device, bookending the entire novel with Scout's telling of the story. While initially the reader might assume Jem broke his arm through innocent childhood games, by the end of the novel we understand the darker, more complicated truth behind the accident. "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it". Standing on the Radley porch allows Scout to finally see the world from Boo Radley's point of view. Earlier in the novel, she was terrified every time she passed the house. Now, as she stands on his porch, she recognizes how much she has grown and how much she has learned.