Why Mockingbird??

What's so special about mockingbird that made it so popular and being adopted to be icons of story books, songs and even the state of florida's bird? At a glimpse, nothing seems special by its looks.



To me, the most conspicuous specialty of the bird is that they are able to imitate the song of many other birds.

To eminem, he coroneted his song after the mockingbird to express his guilt upon his childs on failing to be a good dad. It's quite hard to think of the relevency of mockingbird to his song, since only at the end-part of the song he did mentioned on that bird.

To Harper Lee, he exploited mockingbird as his motivation to write one of his bestselling masterpiece "To Kill A Mockingbird". The story takes place in Alabama in the Depression, and is narrated by the main character, a little girl named Scout Finch. Her father, Atticus Finch, is a lawyer with high moral standards. She and her brother, Jem, and their friend Dill are intrigued by the local rumors about a man named Boo Radley who lives in their neighborhood but never sets foot from his house. Legend has it that he once stabbed his father in the leg with a pair of scissors, and he is made out to be a kind of monster. Dill is from Mississippi but spends his summer in Maycomb at a house near the Finches.



The children are curious to know more about Boo, and create a mini-drama to enact which tells the events of his life as they know them. They slowly begin moving closer to the house itself, which is said to be haunted. They try leaving notes for Boo on his windowsill, but are caught by Atticus, who firmly reprimands them. Then they try sneaking to the house at night and looking through its windows. However, Boo's brother, Nathan Radley, who lives with him, thinks he hears a prowler and begins firing his gun. The children get away, though Jem loses his pants in a gate. When he returns, his ripped pants have been folded and roughly sewn up.

Other mysterious things happen to the Finch children. A certain tree near the Radley house has a hole in which little presents are often left for them, such as pennies and chewing gum. When they leave a note for the giver of these gifts, Boo's brother plugs up the hole the next day with cement. The next winter brings unexpected cold and snows, and the house of the kind neighbor Miss Maudie catches on fire. While Jem and Scout, shivering, watch the blaze from near the Radley house, someone puts a blanket around Scout. She doesn't realize until afterwards that Boo Radley must have been the one to do this.

Atticus decides to take on a case involving a black man named Tom Robinson who has been accused of raping a very poor white girl named Mayella Ewell, a member of the notorious Ewell family, who belong to the layer of Maycomb society that people refer to as "trash." The Finches all face harsh criticism in racist Maycomb because of Atticus's decision to defend Tom, but Atticus insists upon going through with the case because his conscience could not let him do otherwise. He knows that Tom has almost no chance, because the white jury will never believe his story, but he wants to reveal the truth of what happened to his fellow townspeople as well as expose their bigotry.

Scout and Jem find themselves whispered at and taunted, and they have trouble keeping their tempers. At a family Chirstmas gathering, Scout beats up her cloying relative Francis when he accuses Atticus of ruining the family name. Jem cuts off the tops of an old neighbor's flower bushes after she derides Atticus, and then as punishment he has to read out loud to her every day while she breaks her morphine addiction. Atticus holds this old woman up as an example of true courage: the will to keep fighting even when you know you can't win.

The time for the trial draws closer, and Atticus's sister Alexandra comes to stay with the family. She is proper and old-fashioned and wants to shape Scout into the model of the Southern feminine ideal, much to Scout's resentment. Dill runs away from his home, where his mother and new father don't seem interested in him, and stays in Maycomb for the summer of Tom's trial. The night before the trial, Tom is moved into the county jail, and Atticus, fearing a possible lynching, stands guard outside the jail door all night. Jem is concerned about him, and the three children sneak into town to find him. A group of men arrives ready to cause some violence to Tom, but Scout runs out and begins to speak to one of the men, the father of one of her classmates in school. Her innocence brings them out of their mob mentality, and they leave.

The trial pits the evidence of the white Ewells against Tom's evidence. According to the Ewells, Mayella asked Tom to do some work for her while her father was out, and Tom came into their house and forcibly beat and raped Mayella until her father appeared and scared him away. Tom says that Mayella invited him inside, then threw her arms around him and began to kiss him. When her father arrived, he flew into a rage and beat her, while Tom ran away in fright. According to the sheriff's testimony, Mayella's bruises were on the right side of her face. Tom Robinson's left arm is useless due to an old accident, whereas Mr. Ewell leads with his left. Given the evidence, Tom should go free, but after hours of deliberation, the jury pronounces him guilty.

Though the verdict is unfortunate, Atticus feels some satisfaction that the jury took so long deciding‹usually the decision would be made in minutes, because a black man's word would not be trusted. Atticus is hoping for an appeal, but unfortunately Tom tries to escape from his prison and is shot to death. Jem has trouble handling the results of the trial, feeling that his trust in the goodness and rationality of humanity has been betrayed.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ewell has been threatening Atticus and other people connected with the trial because he feels he was humiliated. He gets his revenge one night while Jem and Scout are walking home from Halloween play at their school. He follows them home in the dark, then runs at them and attempts to kill them. Jem breaks his arm, and Scout, who wearing a confining costume, is helpless throughout the attack. However, the elusive Boo Radley stabs Mr. Ewell and saves them. Scout finally has a chance to meet the shy and nervous Boo. The sheriff declares that Mr. Ewell fell on his own knife so that Boo won't have to be tried for murder. Scout walks Boo home. He goes inside and she never sees him again.

And after all the lengthy bla..bla..bla.. yet, I'm still clouded by the question - "WHY MOCKINGBIRD"? Help me anyone?