On their way home from a Halloween pageant one dark night, the children are attacked with a knife by Bob Ewell and Jem is badly hurt. During the fight, Boo Radley comes to their aid and Bob Ewell is killed. The sheriff persuades Atticus to pretend that Bob Ewell fell on his knife.
What does To Kill A Mockingbird reveal to us about race relations in the Southern States of America during the 1930s?
We can recognise several kinds of courage in the book. There is the basic courage required to overcome childish fears, such as running past the Radley place, or returning there to fetch the trousers that Jem caught on the fence. Atticus shows the same kind of physical courage in facing the mad dog, even though he has a gun in his hand. A more difficult form of courage is the moral courage that Scout has to find in order not to retaliate when her friends call her father names. It is not easy to be made to look like a coward. The most difficult form of courage to possess is the courage to take on and carry through a task which is certain to end in failure. Atticus has to do this when he defends Tom Robinson. Mrs Dubose also chooses to do this, when she attempts to rid herself of drug addiction even though she knows she is dying and, in that sense, there is no point to her battle. She wins her fight, and Atticus calls her 'the bravest person' he knows. Atticus wants the children to realise that courage is not 'a man with a gun in his hand'.
Bob Ewell is a man totally without courage. Instead of facing Atticus alone, Bob Ewell tries to take revenge on his children, and even then he does not have the courage to face them in daylight, but strikes in the darkness.
Because of the static nature of the Maycomb population, the same families have lived in the area for nearly two hundred years. As a result, some people feel that each family seems to inherit particular characteristics. They can say that a Cunningham can always be trusted or a Ewell is always dishonest. This leads to social division: every family is categorised on a particular scale and it is important to mix with the 'right' family. Aunt Alexandra is particularly prone to this kind of snobbery. She tries to prevent the children playing with the Cunninghams because they lack 'background'. Atticus is against this kind of social classification, preferring to judge a person on individual merit.
The Cunninghams are a family of very poor farmers who live in Old Sarum in the north of the county. Their roles in the book are varied but significant: they act mainly as a contrast to the Ewell family. The Cunninghams never borrow what they cannot return and they pay their bills promptly, even if they have to pay in vegetables rather than money. They are quite independent of the State. The Cunninghams' son, Walter, is poorly educated and has bad manners but Scout eventually recognises (unlike her aunt) that these things are not important. Walter is essentially a good child, whose circumstances have prevented him from learning to behave any differently.
It is thanks to a Cunningham that the lynch mob disperses at the jail. Scout recognises Mr Cunningham and by talking to him about family matters, she makes him think like an individual again and not like a member of a mob. Finally, thanks to another Cunningham, the jury is delayed in returning their verdict. This delay gives both Atticus and Miss Maudie grounds for optimism for the future of their society.
In theory, all American Negroes have had equal rights in law since the end of the Civil War in 1865. Yet that does not always mean they receive justice. The court's verdict against Tom Robinson, shown through Jell's trusting, inexperienced eyes, ellphasises this. Atticus upholds his belief in the law for, apart from minor improvements which he agrees could be made, he thinks it is satisfactory. What do need to change are people's attitudes. The law can function, but justice cannot be carried out until attitudes change. It is people who must apply the law justly.
Judge Taylor is an honourable man who does his best to see that Tom Robinson has a fair trial by appointing Atticus to defend him. He is a responsible judge who keeps his court well disciplined, despite his casual air and unusual habits, such as eating cigars and cleaning his nails whilst the court is in session.
The deep hatred and fear that exists between Whites and Negroes means that violence could break out at any time. Look how the lynch mob, made up of normally reasonable, respectable men, is ready to kill and how it nearly succeeds. Bob Ewell's hatred of Atticus nearly results in the death of Jem and Scout. Although circumstances force him to use his gun, Atticus does not want his children to admire violence. By pleading for tolerance, Atticus hopes to show the children how the causes of violence can be removed. Atticus is perhaps too idealistic here, because he misjudges the extent of Bob Ewell's hatred. In the same way, any hope that the racial problems of the South could be solved by tolerance alone was perhaps too idealistic.
A dominant theme in the novel is the cruelty that people inflict upon others by the holding of pre-formed ideas, 'the simple hell people give other people’, as Dolphus Raymond puts it. These ideas are not simply deep racial prejudice, but also the intolerant, narrow, rigid codes of behaviour that the townspeople of Maycomb wish to impose on each other. This bigotry (another word for prejudice) is made all the more menacing by being depicted as 'normal' behaviour by many characters in the book. Against this background, people such as Boo Radley, Dolphus Raymond and, to some extent, Maudie Atkinson, are persecuted because they do not conform. Tom Robinson is found guilty even though it is strongly suspected that his accusers are lying, because he went against the 'acceptable' behaviour of a Negro and dared to feel sorry for a white person.
So deeply entrenched is racial prejudice in Maycomb that the townspeople do not realise their own hypocrisy. The author highlights such double standards during Aunt Alexandra's missionary circle tea. The women talk with great sympathy about the plight of the poor Mruna tribe in Africa, but later condemn the dissatisfaction of the Negroes in their own town. At school Miss Gates extols the virtue of American democracy, then complains that the Negroes are 'getting way above themselves'.
Dolphus Raymond is also regarded as an oddity in the town, because he is a white man who chooses to live amongst Negroes. He is a sensitive man who loathes the society which makes black and white people live separately. Interestingly, the blacks in To Kill a Mockingbird do not seem to consider rebelling; the most that happens is that they become 'sulky'. The only representative of black prejudice is Lula, but the church congregation controls her behaviour and makes her outburst ineffective. The blacks resent Tom's conviction but as they have been second-class citizens from birth, they seem to expect it.
The image of the mockingbird occurs frequently in the book. The children are warned that it is a sin to kill this bird because all it does is sing. The mockingbird has no original song of its own, but merely copies the songs of other birds -hence its name. Both Tom Robinson and Boo Radley can be compared with this bird. They are both gentle people who have done no harm but only try to help others. Both their lives are distorted versions of what might have been 'normal', but for their individual circumstances and backgrounds. Like the mockingbird, Tom and Boo should be protected and cared for. Instead, they are hunted down by the mob, who are full of false courage, ignorance and shallow pride -like the children who shoot songbirds. Both Tom and Boo are persecuted, one by the jury and the other by the children and the gossips. The mockingbird symbol links to two important themes in the book: justice and childhood. Justice is 'killed' when the jury follow their own prejudices and ignore the true evidence. The innocence of childhood dies for Jem, Scout and Dill when they realise that the adult world is often a cruel and unjust place.
