10-20 assignment

I realized shortly after I began reading To Kill a Mockingbird that the title of the book, and hence the story as well, was not literal, because the book is not a hunting story. That observation led me to realize that the title and text of this book was figurative. That sent me on a quest to discover the meaning. I knew that I had to figure out what both "kill" and "mockingbird" meant. By the conclusion of the book, I noted that there were multiple meanings of the words "kill" and "mockingbird". One of the meanings of the title is the death of Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of raping a young white girl. A mockingbird, as defined in the book, is someone who does not do anyone any harm and is innocent. Tom Robinson is as innocent as a mockingbird of the crime he was accused of and then is killed. His character is actually "killed" by the false accusations even before his physical death by a gun. Another example of the figurative meaning of the title is the "killing" or death of Scout and Jem's childhood at an early age. Scout and Jem were eight and ten years old, respectively, when the story begins- mere children, yet they had to face adult sized issues of prejudice, hatred, death and lies, just to name a few. The meaning of the killing of the mockingbird in this example is the death of Scout and Jem's childhood innocence, a "harmless" period of life. There are many other examples that I observed, and I am sure that there are many more examples that I did not take note of. I think that the figurative illustrations in the book make the book so meaningful.