The most important theme of the 1960 Pulitzer Prize winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird is author Harper Lee’s tenacious exploration of the moral nature of people. Lee tenaciously explores the moral nature of human beings, especially the struggle in every human soul between discrimination and tolerance. The novel is very effective in not only revealing prejudice, but in examining the nature of prejudice, how it works, and its consequences. One of the ways it accomplishes this is by dramatizing the main characters’, Scout and Jem’s, maturing transition from a perspective of childhood innocence. Initially, because they have never seen or experienced evil themselves, they assume that all ...view middle of the document...
He does not understand why all of this is happening. Prejudice and racism do not make any sense to Jem as they are so foreign to his nature that he had assumed they did not exist. When the shameful courtroom proceedings are over he retreats into a troubled state of deep disillusionment.
In contrast, Atticus Finch has experienced and understood evil throughout his life. He has been confronted with prejudice and racism, but has not lost his faith in the human capacity for goodness. Atticus understands from his own experiences and reflection that, rather than being simply creatures of good or creatures of evil, most people have both good and bad qualities. Jem and Scout only learn this after their troubling experiences with racism and prejudice during the trial. When they do, it is a revelation which eases some of the burden of their discovery of prejudice.
One of the most powerful scenes in the novel is when Jem asks, “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 ?” He sadly declares, “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.” In Jem, the sadness is deep and lasting (Lee 240).
Lee proceeds to demonstrate the range of prejudice and tolerance in people by emphasizing the point very effectively through the sheriff’s explanation that, “I’m not a very good man, sir, but I am sheriff of Maycomb County. I’ve lived in this town all my life an’ I'm goin’ on forty-three years old. Know everything that’s happened here since before I was born. There’s a black boy dead for no reason, and the...
