The Significance of Symbolism in “to Kill a Mockingbird”

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The Significance of Symbolism in “To Kill a Mockingbird” toward Social and Racial Prejudice The novel by Harper Lee, “To Kill a Mockingbird” mainly discussed about prejudice in many aspects. One aspect is about the prejudice against Tom Robinson, a black man who is falsely accused of raping a white woman and convicted to be guilty by all white jury because of the custom of the society and the racism of the people. Harper Lee uses symbolism which carries the message better than words to signify the prejudice that can be seen as symbols throughout the story, mostly about the problems of social and racial prejudice in the South in 1930s. The use of prejudicial symbolism can be studied by looking through symbols from the book. The paper will be discussing about symbolization of the prejudice against Tom Robinson, the causes from historical context and the evidence of prejudicial thought which is upheld by people in Maycomb society. Firstly, the symbol that represents the social prejudice of people in Maycomb society is the mad dog, Tim Johnson. Notably, the dog’s name “Tim Johnson” is somehow similar to the name of “Tom Robinson” and both of them are victims of the social prejudice in Maycomb in a way that they are problems of the society that people avoid to encounter. When the dog appears along the street, the Maycombians stay inside their houses and refuse to come out, as well as for Tom Robinson’s case, people refuse to see the evidence of his innocence and avoid to solve the problem of racism. Nobody dares to confront the problems but Atticus who is the only one brave enough to pull the trigger and also the only one brave enough to go against the social prejudice of the town. According to the novel, "With movements so swift they seemed simultaneous, Atticus's hand yanked a ball-tipped lever as he brought the gun to his shoulder. The rifle
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