Mockingbird Motif

Before reading To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, my understanding of a motif was very different. I thought the motif was almost the same thing as a theme, and I didn't understand the difference. However, the motif of a mockingbird in this story helped me to come to the conclusion that a motif is more like a reoccuring symbol in a piece of literature.

The mockingbird motif comes up many times throughout the course of this novel. It is first introduced to the main character Scout, by her father Atticus, when he tells the children to "never kill a mockingbird". The mockingbird is also referred to after Tom Robinson's death, when Mr. Underwood, the newspaper editor, relates Tom's death to the "killing of innocent songbirds". Finally, at the end of the story, Scout seems to have grasped this idea of not killing a mockingbird when she tells Atticus that bringing Boo Radley to court would be almost like killing a mockingbird. All these quotes are examples of the motif of an innocent mockingbird. To kill something so innocent and naive is almost like killing a mockingbird, because mockingbirds never do anything wrong, and have no reason to be killed.