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Is anyone truly innocent in this novel? The 1930s in America were the hard for everyone. With financial problems caused by The Wall Street crash leading to The Great Depression in 1929 families were left poor or poorer than they originally were. For a big number of people this led to homelessness or slum conditions. Two main types of people that suffered the most were farmers and black people. These people were affected the most as they were already quite poor before The Depression started. At this time America also had racial problems black people were seen and treated as inferior to white people. Facilities were segregated and laws (Jim Crow Laws)1 imposed this segregation and of course black people were discriminated against. These laws were supposedly separate but equal however they were the complete opposite. They gave white people the advantage over black people and were a hindrance to the black population. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is set during this time, in a small town society that is racist and that is suffering financial problems. The novel is semi-autobiographical as some of the plot and characters are based on the life she had through those years and events which happened, such as Harper Lee seeing a white woman accuse a black man of rape where the man was guilty but was sentenced to death. The Radleys are possibly a reflection of her neighbours that had a boarded house and whose son wasnt seen out for a while after he got into legal trouble. The novel is also a bildungsroman where by dealing with issues like racial inequality and poverty, readers are taught the immoral ways and errors of society. Innocence in this novel comes in many forms from childhood innocence to moral goodness, but are the characters really innocent or are there faades put on to hide their guilt? By exploring who is guilty, of what and to what extent I will discover who is actually innocent or is the least guilty character in the novel. The most obvious character who is supposedly guilty is Tom Robinson. He has been accused of raping a white woman, which during Harper Lees time was and is seen now as a big criminal offence. Everyone believes he is guilty purely based on the colour of his skin; the fact he is black and inferior to any white person. However, he is the innocent one in the situation and Mayella Ewell is the guilty. In the eyes of the law Mayella would definitely be the innocent one as she is the victim. Firstly because of her age but also her sex and race. While Mayella is seen as a victim she is not innocent. Most people link innocence and victimhood and so if someone is a victim or thought to be one, they are automatically innocent. This shows that the legal system was unconstitutional and Harper Lee chose to include this in her book because she wanted to highlight the fact that even under the law things are not just. The fact that the only person who can see his innocence is Scout is used to show that others have been corrupted by societys errors of which they are all guilty, whereas Scout herself has not and so has her childhood innocence preserved. Later on in
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Paul Barnes, R. Paul Evans, Peris Jones-Evans: GCSE History for WJEC specification A (2003, Heinemann) page 248.

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the novel we see that Scouts innocence is gradually lost as she becomes accustomed to the way in which people are openly racist and sexist. As Scout loses this innocence she gains something more important: an understanding of society around her and a deeper understanding of moral values. The person who is literally guilty within the law is Mayella Ewell, the law states that she as a white person should not have sex with a black man. In society if she broke this law, because it was also immoral she would be looked down on and be regarded as trash like black people. When Mayella broke the law and the moral behaviour code she didnt acknowledge the damage done by it until after it happened then she tried to shift the blame on Tom Robinson and accused him of raping her; the only way she could get out of the situation without being more of a social downcast. As Atticus said She was white, and she tempted a Negro. She did something that in our society is unspeakable: she kissed a black man. Not an Uncle, but a strong young Negro man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterwards. (Page 210) Mayella Ewell represents the people that make situations for black people in which they could be potentially life threatening but still make them for their own benefits. Harper Lee is trying to show the readers that these people are wrong for doing so but that if the moral code wasnt what it was then there would be no need for shifting the blame. Various characters are guilty of putting on false appearances to appear as something they are not and sometimes these are to hide their guilt. Calpurnia is a character who puts on a false appearance, as Scout realises when they go to her church. That Calpurnia led a modest double life never dawned on me. The idea that she had a separate existence outside our household was a novel one, to say nothing of her having command of two languages. (Page 131) We see from Scout that even the people deemed by the readers as the most unlikely to be false are the ones that are in actual fact. Scout asks her Why do you talk nigger-talk to the- to your folks when you know its not right? (page 131) when Calpurnia replies that it is because she is black and that she is trying to fit in, Scout then says But Cal you know better (page 132) This infers that at this point Scout is already becoming used to societys innate racism and losing her childhood innocence as she is implying that the white peoples way of talking is better than the black peoples or could be interpreted as Scout telling Calpurnia that she knows that she doesnt have to change to fit in. Scout doesnt realise that she is becoming just like the people she doesnt like or want to become like; the racists. Calpurnia feels that she has to behave in a certain way in front of certain people which reflects the influence people have on other innocent ones. If she were to talk like a white person in front of people of the same colour skin and background as her, how would she be seen? Probably

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like a traitor, a supercilious person who looks down on the other black people but generally she may have been hated for making others feel inferior or intimidated. Dolphus Raymond is a good example of a character that puts on a false faade but its not to hide his guilt. Scouts encounter with Dolphus Raymond after leaving the courtroom and finds out he pretends to be an alcoholic. He then says to her I try to give em a reason, you see. It helps folks if they can latch on to a reason He cant help himself, thats why he lives the way he does. (Page 207) Dolphus faade is to give society a reason why in his right mind he would marry a black woman, which is quite ironic because his faade is that he is not in the right frame of mind. The fact that he has to pretend that there is a reason why he cant make the proper decision and marry a white woman to benefit society emphasises how extreme peoples beliefs were about interracial marriage during the 1930s. Anti-miscegenation laws made it illegal for people of different races, commonly black and white people to have an intimate relationship or marry. The United States Supreme Court ruled that the law would be abolished in 1967 but Alabama didnt officially repeal until 2000. As it was illegal, if a white person was found to be in a relationship with a black person they could be put into jail. Harper Lee uses Dolphus Raymond to represent the people in the real world who are too afraid to stand up for equal rights and what is morally right. Throughout the novel she uses the characters to represent different sectors of the society like the Cunninghams who represent the poor, innocent farmers and their families as a result of the Depression, and the members of the First Purchase church who also represent the innocent black people in society that ironically take their religion more seriously than the majority of whites. Dolphus is also guilty of being dishonest as Scout says That aint honest, Mr Raymond, making yourself out bladdern you are already-. (Page 207) We acknowledge the facades later on in the novel, when time has moved on. Perhaps this suggests that the characters put them on due to the racism and sexism later in the years rather than the Depression in 1929. This would be surprising because generally people should be more concerned about being able to live comfortably rather than other peoples opinions of them. If this was the case then we are shown how extreme the issue of racism was at that point of time and that it was a much bigger issue than the Depression for society then. Mrs Dubose is another clearly guilty character. She has become a morphine addict but is she really, truly guilty? I think that she is not purely based on the reason that she knows that being addicted to drugs is morally wrong and socially unacceptable so she tries to break the habit and succeeds although through succeeding she dies. What Mrs Dubose probably didnt know is that society accepted that she would have to take the drugs as Atticus reveals to Jem after her death. When youre sick as she was, its all right to take anything to make it easier, but it wasnt

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alright for her. (Page 117) She made a choice of life and death but to be a good person she chose the moral way despite an early, more painful death. However it could also be argued that she cared too much what others thought of her like the likes of Dolphus Raymond and Calpurnia which is where her guilt lays. Bob Ewell is the person that readers feel most disgusted with and know completely that he is guilty of being an alcoholic, abusing Mayella and committing incest. When Mayella is asked if her father beats her up when he is drinking, she either doesnt answer, gives a vague reply or says something which leads to us believing that he does. An example is when Atticus asks her Is he easy to get along with? then she replies He does tollable, cept when- (page 189) We gather from this that he is fine with Mayella except when he is under the influence of alcohol. If people dont feel he is guilty now, it becomes clearer when he attacks Scout and Jem on their way home. What normal person would attack someones children because they are angry at their parent? Bob Ewell is not a normal person; he is a criminal that should be in prison for all the wrong doing he did. The mockingbirds in this novel are the ones that do no harm and that are only good. They dont do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. Thats why its a sin to kill a mockingbird. (Page 96) It could be said that they are the innocent ones bringing hope to others. These people are Tom, Atticus and Boo Radley they are always kind and moral and never do anything wrong. In Atticus case it could be said that by shaming Mayella he was doing wrong but in actual fact by doing this he was defending Tom Robinson from the Ewells lies who was not guilty of raping Mayella so its a good thing. Atticus brought hope to the black people in the society and in the courtroom. On the outside Boo Radley seems strange and appears to be a person who people should stay away from, he is actually harmless and helps Scout and Jem when they get attacked by Bob Ewell. Tom is a mockingbird because he is a representative for the black people in society that are accused of crimes based on their colour and actually are charged with it even when its completely obvious that they havent done it, as in Tom Robinsons case. The quote ties in with Tom as when they killed him it was a sin which should not have happened but did because of the racism. In this novel it appears that everyone is guilty of something apart from the mockingbirds, but some are less guilty than others. The type of guilt determines whether we actually call them guilty. If there has been an influence on them, depending on how strong the influence was we come to the conclusion that those influences are guilty and whoever is involved with the influence too. The only innocent people are Tom, Atticus, Boo and the children as they are not influenced by the society and dont conform to their ways.

Mrs Richards