To Kill a Mockingbird

Throughout To Kill A Mockingbird, guns serve as a shorthand for violence. Though the precise tone and message of this shorthand evolves throughout the book, each appearance of a gun raises new questions about the necessity of violence (and the peril it brings to those close to us).

In the southern world of Maycomb, guns are considered an essential part of life, to the degree that—upon reluctantly gifting his children guns for Christmas—Atticus claims he’s “bowing to the inevitable” (91). The guns are gifted, however, with firm cautions as to how they should be used. Atticus explains that they’re allowed to “shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em,” but they must “remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (103). Miss Maudie later illuminates the importance of this advice, explaining that mockingbirds “don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us” (103). In other words, Atticus establishes that it is a sin to exact violence on innocent creatures who have done no harm to those around them.

Atticus’s policy toward non-violence is put to the test, however, when he shoots the rabid Old Tim Johnson, a dog formerly thought of as “the pet of Maycomb” (105). Atticus demonstrates considerable talent with his gun, killing the dog in just one shot. When the Finch children ask Miss Maudie why he never previously revealed his shooting talent, she explains, “he put his gun down when he realized that God had given him an unfair advantage over most living things. I guess he decided he wouldn’t shoot till he had to, and he had to today” (112). Though Atticus was reluctant to exert his power over a helpless dog—which, as “the pet of Maycomb,” serves as a stand-in for Maycomb’s community—he accepted the necessity of violence to protect that very community.

This same complex logic is applied to Atticus’s defense of Tom Robinson, particularly when he stands down the lynch mob of “people [the Finch family] know[s]” (179). Though Atticus dislikes the idea of confronting their friends and neighbors, he knows it is necessary to do so in order to protect Tom Robinson, who is also a member of Maycomb’s community. This connection is confirmed by Scout, when she collates these two memories of Atticus:

I was very tired, and was drifting into sleep when the memory of Atticus calmly folding his newspaper and pushing back his hat became Atticus standing in the middle of an empty waiting street, pushing up his glasses. The full meaning of the night’s events hit me and I began crying (177).

The novel also collates the incident where Nathan Radley shoots at Jem and the prison guard’s shooting of Tom Robinson (who is Black). The string of connections—between Jem, “the pet of Maycomb,” and Tom Robinson—is made explicit when Miss Stephanie gossips about the incident, saying Nathan Radley is waiting to shoot someone and doesn’t care if it’s a dog, a Black person, or Jem. This collapsing between different people and different acts of violence comes full circle at the end of the novel, when Atticus and Heck Tate debate whether Bob Ewell was killed by Jem or Boo Radley. Thus, in To Kill A Mockingbird, different members of the community bleed into one another.