Motif: Mockingbird

In the beginning of the year I thought I had a fairly good idea of what motif was. I didn't. I had one dictionary.com definition I got for the glossary we had to do to get in to Honors, I called it good and ran with it. Actually I learned what motif is when we began comparing what we said in our glossary definitions and combined them together to get a slum idea of of what it was. I finally 'got' what motif is when we read To Kill a Mockingbird and I realized it was a hidden thing that recurred in the book.

The motif in To Kill a Mockingbird is the mockingbird and how killing it is a sin. The mockingbird never does harm to anyone and represents innocence in the novel. The motif comes up when major events that showcase themes in the novel happen and the mockingbird fleshes it out and brings out the deeper meaning in the important events. An example is the Robinson case, the mockingbird is Tom and this bring out the theme of injustice v. justice.