Atticus Finch is a mockingbird because he defends Tom Robinson “Do you defend niggers, Atticus?” I asked him that evening. “Of course I do. Don’t say nigger, Scout. That’s common.” (75) Atticus is a very good man, because he chooses to defend Tom Robinson, even though he is black. Though he loses the trial, Atticus does everything in his power to make the jury see that Tom Robinson is an innocent man. Atticus is “killed” when his children are attacked by Bob Ewell on their way home from the school. This shakes him, because he wants to be able to shield his children from the bad people in the world, and it scares him when he is unable.
Tom Robinson is a mockingbird because he helps Mayella out of the goodness of his heart and asks for nothing in return, but is killed after the trial by members of the racist town. “Mr. Finch, it was way last spring. I remember it because it was choppin’ time and I had my hoe with me. I said I didn’t have nothin’ but this hoe, but she said she had a hatchet and I broke up the chiffarobe. She said ‘I reckon I’ll haftagive you a nickel, won’t I?’ an’ I said, “No ma’am, there ain’t no charge.’ Then I went home.”(91) Tom is a good man because he willingly helped Mayella with the yard work, and charged nothing in return. He is killed when he is shot seventeen times after the trial. He lost the trial based