Roll In The Tire

Caught the movie, "To kill a mockingbird" by author, Harper Lee in the library yesterday afternoon. The novel was narrated through Scott, a 6-year-old girl about growing up under extraordinary circumstances in the Southern United States, Maycomb in the 1930s.

As explained by the key character, Atticus (Scott's dad), a mockingbird is a harmless bird that makes the world more pleasant. In this movie, the mockingbird symbolizes Boo Radley and Tom Robinson, who were both tranquil people who never did any harm. To kill or harm them would be a sin. Atticus, tells Scout and Jem, "I'd rather you shoot at tin cans in the backyard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit them, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

Hence, the mockingbird symbolizes these two characters because it does not have its own song. In contrast to the blue jay who is loud and obnoxious, the mockingbird only sings other birds' songs. In other words, the mockingbird is only seen through the other birds.

Likewise, the people of Maycomb only knew Boo Radley and Tom Robinson by what others said about them. Both of these characters do not really have their own "songs" in a sense, and are described by other people's comments.

Come to think of it, don't we behave the same? In many instances, towards people whom we are not familiar with, we tend to "influence" others by impressing upon our viewpoints on them.

In reality, our comments may be distorting and not reflective of the person's actual personality.

Are you one of them?