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What does the mockingbird symbolize in To Kill a Mockingbird?

May 24, 20264 min readbook-analysis

The mockingbird in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird symbolises innocence that is vulnerable to destruction by forces of prejudice, ignorance, and injustice -- and the moral responsibility of those who understand this to protect it.

To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960 and won the Pulitzer Prize the following year. It is not in the public domain, but it is one of the most studied novels in American education, and its central symbol is worth understanding clearly. The mockingbird appears in the title and in one key passage of instruction near the novel's beginning -- but its meaning radiates through every character and event that follows.

What is a mockingbird?#

A mockingbird is a songbird that does nothing but sing. It does not eat gardens, does not nest in corncribs, does not harm anything. It exists to make music for others. To kill a mockingbird is therefore -- as the character Atticus Finch explains to his daughter Scout -- a sin. It destroys something that existed only to give pleasure and has done nothing to deserve destruction.

Atticus's neighbor Miss Maudie elaborates: "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."

Who are the mockingbirds in the novel?#

Tom Robinson is the most direct embodiment of the mockingbird symbol. He is a Black man accused of raping a white woman in Depression-era Alabama. He is gentle, helpful, and innocent of the crime. The jury convicts him anyway. The system destroys him not because of anything he has done but because of what he represents in the social order of Maycomb, Alabama. He is a mockingbird killed by prejudice.

Boo Radley is the novel's other mockingbird. He is a reclusive man who has been imprisoned in his own home by his father and by the neighbourhood's mythology about him. He exists outside the social world of Maycomb, harmless and ultimately protective of Scout and Jem. When he kills Bob Ewell to protect the children, Sheriff Tate decides not to report the killing publicly -- because to do so would be to kill a mockingbird: to expose a gentle, private person to a world that would destroy him.

What does the mockingbird symbol say about justice?#

The novel's deepest argument is that formal justice -- the law, the courts, the trial -- is insufficient protection for mockingbirds. Tom Robinson has the best lawyer in Maycomb. The evidence overwhelmingly supports his innocence. He is convicted anyway because the jury will not return a verdict that contradicts the racial hierarchy of the town.

The mockingbird symbol asks: what do we do when the formal systems of justice fail to protect the innocent? Atticus's answer is to try anyway, to make the injustice as visible and difficult to commit as possible, even when you know you will lose. Sheriff Tate's answer, in the case of Boo Radley, is to step outside the formal system entirely and protect the mockingbird through informal judgment.

For another novel that investigates the failure of formal justice to protect the vulnerable, what does Raskolnikov's confession mean in Crime and Punishment covers a very different legal context with a similar moral weight.

Why does the title matter?#

Lee chose a title that is a moral statement, not a plot description. "To kill a mockingbird" is not a description of anything that happens in the novel -- there are no actual mockingbirds killed. It is a description of what the novel is about at its deepest level: the sin of destroying innocence, and the question of who is responsible when societies do exactly that.

Further reading#

For other classic American novels that confront racial injustice, classic books for people who don't usually read classics includes several accessible entry points.

For the broader tradition of American literary symbolism, understanding the classics: themes, symbols, and meaning is the companion guide.

For books that deal with justice, innocence, and moral responsibility in the 19th-century American tradition, the best adventure novels in the public domain includes several titles available free on Foxing.

Sources#