Mockingbird Symbolism and Meaning

The melodious call of the mockingbird has inspired artists and writers for ages. Appearing in myths, poetry, literature, songs, and more, the mockingbird carries rich symbolic meaning.

In American literature, mockingbirds famously represent innocence in Harper Lee’s classic To Kill a Mockingbird. Beyond Lee’s novel, mockingbirds have embodied ideas like purity, hope, freedom of expression, vulnerability, morality, and social justice. Their appearance often highlights the beauty of nature and music as well.

So why does this small, unassuming bird contain such profound meaning? What is the history behind mockingbird symbolism? And how can understanding mockingbird symbolism can enrich our reading and interpretation of art?

This guide will uncover the multifaceted symbolism behind the mockingbird. We’ll explore:

• A Brief History of Mockingbird Symbolism
• Mockingbirds as Symbols of Innocence
• The Hope and Optimism Mockingbirds Represent
• Freedom of Expression in Mockingbirds
• Mockingbirds as Symbols of Vulnerability
• Mockingbirds, Morality and Justice
• Mockingbirds in Mythology and Folklore
• Mockingbirds as Symbols of Nature and Music
• Mockingbirds in Literature, Poetry, and Song
• Key Takeaways: Core Aspects of Mockingbird Symbolism

Let’s start by understanding where mockingbird symbolism originated.

A Brief History of Mockingbird Symbolism

Why do mockingbirds contain such symbolic significance in the first place? After all, they appear rather plain and unremarkable on the surface.

“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They 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.” —Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Part of the mockingbird mystique comes from their magical songs. Mockingbirds have an extraordinary vocal range and can mimic almost any sound, from the songs of other birds to creaking doors, car alarms, and even cell phone ringtones!

This excellent mimicking ability connects to the meaning behind their common name. Male mockingbirds will frequently sing through the night during mating season, as if “mocking” conventional bedtime. Their Latin name, “Mimus polyglottos,” also references this talent. “Mimus” means “mimic,” while “polyglottos” means “many tongued.”

Beyond their clever copying of sounds, mockingbirds simply create beautiful music. Their varied melodies contain an innocent purity and hopeful joy. Writers as far back as Classical times commented on mockingbirds’ impressive musicality.

The Ancient Roman poet Ovid mentioned mockingbirds charming Orpheus in the underworld with their voices. Later, in Medieval bestiaries, monks called mockingbirds the most “melodious of birds.” These early observers set the stage for mockingbirds to gain symbolic status over time.

Mockingbirds as Symbols of Innocence

Perhaps the most famous use of mockingbird symbolism is in Harper Lee’s 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The title itself alerts readers that the innocent mockingbird will play an important symbolic role.

“Remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” —Miss Maudie explaining mockingbird symbolism to Scout

In this Southern Gothic coming-of-age story, a young girl named Jean Louise “Scout” Finch witnesses racial injustice in her small Alabama town. Her father Atticus, a lawyer, defends a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. Despite Atticus’ strong defense revealing the women’s lying testimony, the jury still convicts the innocent man because of racial prejudice.

Though set in the 1930s, the novel’s themes powerfully echoed the contemporary Civil Rights Movement occurring as Lee wrote her novel in the mid-1950s.

In Mockingbird, Boo Radley, Tom Robinson and Jem Finch all function as symbolic “mockingbirds.” Victims of violence, hatred, false accusations, judgment or misunderstanding, these characters represent the book’s core values of morality and justice.

The children receive guidance about mockingbirds when neighbor Miss Maudie Atkinson explains, “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us… That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

Lee uses the mockingbird, in all its innocence, to expose and critique racial prejudice and social injustice. Through representing vulnerable characters like Tom Robinson as mockingbirds, Lee plays on readers’ emotions and moral sense to inspire outrage at violence against the innocent.

To Kill a Mockingbird’s mockingbird symbolism follows in the traditions of earlier Southern Gothic works, which also used gothic elements like the uncanny and grotesque alongside images of the South. In general, Southern Gothic literature obscures boundaries between good and evil to explore social issues around morality, class, race, violence, and gender roles in the South.

The Hope and Optimism Mockingbirds Represent

Beyond representing innocence, mockingbirds symbolize optimism and hope. Their sweet songs contain a cheerful view of life that can inspire others. Even amidst tragedy, mockingbird songs offer comfort and remind people of goodness in the world.

Mockingbird characters frequently serve as conduits of hope. For example, Tom Robinson’s kindness and integrity in To Kill a Mockingbird, despite his tragic death, point the way to moral clarity in a racially unjust world.

The novel contains another mockingbird that inspires hope—Jem Finch’s positive character development toward greater understanding suggests society as a whole may some day become less prejudiced.

In poetry too, mockingbirds signify hope, as in Walt Whitman’s poetic line “Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sunrise would kill me, / If I could not now and always send sunrise out of me.” Here the mockingbird appears joyously confident in its own music outpouring from its soul into the wide world. Whitman links mockingbirds with sunrises, elevating them as great inspirations through their glorious songs.

Even in death, poets use mockingbirds to represent endurance of the hopeful spirit. As one famous example, in Dirge Without Music by Edna St. Vincent Millay the speaker comments on her own mortality:

“I shall go singing as far as the white waterfall / Leaping triumphant over its new-won height, / And no rock-faced emperor shall refuse to me the dominion of my final province.”

Though the poem grapples with death, its verses burst with vivid lyricism, energy, passion, and conviction about the afterlife. Linking her spirit to the mockingbird, Millay suggests her soul will not vanish in death but instead gain new melodic powers, allowing it to soar to greater heights like the waterfall.

By hearing the music in mockingbirds, writers highlight the hope found even in darkness. Their songs cut through grief, pain, loss, prejudice, and injustice by uplifting human hearts and minds.

Freedom of Expression in Mockingbirds

Mockingbirds also embody freedom of expression. Their varied songs represent the diversity of individual voices. Harper Lee explores this meaning in To Kill a Mockingbird’s courtroom drama around Tom Robinson. Even when the jury declares Robinson guilty despite significant reasonable doubt around his innocence, Atticus defends justice through his stirring closing argument.

Atticus draws the jury’s attention to their own moral duty when he declares that in our courts, “all men are created equal.” He emphasizes how all people long to freely express their essential humanity. However, racist constructs can impose unjust suffering and inhibit free expression.

The mockingbird reminds judges and jurors of their responsibility to enact justice so the innocent can speak. Killing mockingbirds not only destroys blameless lives but also silences beautiful voices unfairly.

Poets frequently focus on mockingbirds joyfully singing their varied heartsongs. Just as diverse bird species collectively create rich biodiversity through their social interconnection, so too can human society gain strength through freely exchanging ideas across perceived borders of difference.

Mockingbirds as Symbols of Vulnerability

In their innocence, mockingbirds can also represent vulnerability in an unjust world. Their trusting nature leaves them open to violence from those acting without compassion or integrity.

Harper Lee plays on this vulnerability in her novel’s title and plot. The black Tom Robinson receives zero justice from the white jury, despite clearly proving his innocence. The racist power structures allow Tom to be killed for no reason beyond the supposed “crime” of his skin color.

In the novel, mysterious neighbor Boo Radley also functions as a vulnerable, metaphorical mockingbird. Suffering abuse for years at the hands of his cruel father, Boo exists as an outcast in Maycomb society. Adults spread fearful stories that the Finch children initially believe, contributing to Boo’s mistreatment. The mayor even attempts to lock Boo up as if he were a dangerous criminal.

Over time, Scout realizes Boo has been watching her and Jem benevolently to gain an understanding of childhood innocence denied to him. In the iconic scene when Boo carries the injured Jem to safety after Bob Ewell

attacks them, Scout finally recognizes Boo’s kindness and moral character. She gained insight that allowed her to reject unjust perceptions and instead extend compassion.

Lee utilizes mockingbirds like Boo Radley to flesh out nuances around innocence. She prompts consideration of how vulnerable groups pay heavy prices within an unjust status quo. However, Lee leaves room for hope that human moral progress can still advance to protect the innocent.

Mockingbirds, Morality and Justice

The ethics of protecting innocent mockingbirds forms the central theme of Harper Lee’s novel. She believes killing mockingbirds serves as a metaphor for acting immorally once people lowercase moral reasoning to harm the blameless.

Lee structures her novel as a coming-of-age tale to allow her young protagonist to gain wisdom about innocence, vulnerability, justice, injustice, and human moral complexity in an imperfect world. Scout’s growth allows readers to mature ethically alongside her.

While Scout idolizes her father Atticus at first as the ultimate moral exemplar, the racist jury verdict makes her question the absolute divisions of good vs evil. She learns morality dwells in shades of gray. However, by upholding the innocent mockingbirds, Lee insists moral clarity still remains possible, even amidst the ambiguity.

To Kill a Mockingbird’s mockingbird symbolism around morality and justice connects to the wider American imagination. Protecting the powerless innocent has long remained a central national narrative, even as the U.S. justice system frequently failed to live up to high ideals in practice.

Creative symbols like the mockingbird offer hope for inspiring progress. Like Scout, each generation coming of age in America holds potential for getting society closer to fairness and justice for all through ongoing moral maturation and understanding.

Mockingbirds in Mythology and Folklore

Beyond literature, mockingbirds appear symbolically in mythology, dream symbolism, and folklore across cultures. In these imaginative realms mockingbirds suggest magical qualities like transcendence, soulful wisdom, and spiritual power.

Mockingbirds in Native American Folklore

For Southwestern Native American tribes like the Pueblo and Navajo, mockingbirds appear as far back as their ancient origin stories. Tribes with mockingbird clans believe they descend from mockingbirds spiritually. Mockingbirds still symbolize summer rains and overall seasonal renewal of life for tribes like the Tohono O’odham in southern Arizona.

In one tale, Mockingbird plays a sacred role in finding water to save the tribe from drought. His singing causes a life-giving deluge to burst from dry desert sands. This story elevated mockingbirds as powerful bringers of new life through their songs that induced rainfall.

Mockingbirds as Spirit Guides and Messengers

Some modern spiritualists describe mockingbirds as spirit guides. They believe mockingbirds can provide intuitive guidance by amplifying attention, awakening imagination, bolstering confidence, and indicating support from the spirit world.

Seeing or hearing a mockingbird may convey encouragement to pursue creative self-expression, speak one’s truth, or trust insights. As messengers, mockingbirds can carry wisdom from beyond through their appearances or songs to offer hope.

Mockingbird Dream Symbolism

In dream analysis, mockingbirds represent uplifting emotions, joyful connections, creativity or new ideas with potential. Hearing mockingbirds singing in dreams signals happiness and emotional expression. Finding inspiration after encountering a mockingbird in dreams is common.

Alternatively, dreaming of a silent mockingbird can mean inhibition of creativity, emotions, or voice. If a dream mockingbird dies or gets injured, it may reflect grieving a loss in waking life or struggling to overcome trauma and revive hope.

Analyzing mockingbirds in dreams often leads to breakthroughs around embracing inner creativity, healing through community support, or releasing unhealthy repression.

Mockingbirds as Symbols of Nature and Music

Beyond their rich symbolic meaning, writers also utilize mockingbirds simply to represent the beauty and joy found in music and the natural world. Their lovely songs never fail to charm listeners.

Poets like Samuel Taylor Coleridge used mockingbirds to symbolize poetic inspiration deriving organically from lived experience in nature. In Frost at Midnight, Coleridge describes resting inside on a winter night when he hears:

“The silent ministry of frost / Shall hang them up in silent icicles, / Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.”

This scene leads the speaker to meditate on the “secret ministry” of winter frost to create natural beauty. In the next lines, Coleridge describes how frost facilitates future creation:

“so shalt thou see / The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible / Of that eternal language, which thy God / Utters…”

Here, Coleridge utilizes mockingbird calls sounding in winter as the stirring of divine creative language. The poet dreams his infant son beside him might similarly discover poetic inspiration through natural beauty.

Beyond poetry, mockingbird songs also became a foundation of American blues music. As just one example, singer Big Bill Broonzy’s wrote popular songs like “Mockingbird Blues.” Following African American musical traditions, blues singers embraced mockingbird sounds as muses. Their melancholic yet vibrant lyrics echo mockingbird cries through troubled times that still uphold the soul.

Overall, mockingbird melodies through history link human creativity across cultures to the flowing beauty of untouched nature. Their music sings of freedom, transcendence and the enduring life force.

Mockingbirds in Literature, Poetry, and Song

Many great writers beyond Harper Lee have incorporated mockingbird symbolism into their works. From William Faulkner to Maya Angelou to Tennessee Williams, mockingbirds permeate the American literary imagination. They’ve appeared internationally too, in writing from Charles Dickens to García Lorca to D. H. Lawrence and beyond.

Some notable examples of mockingbirds in literature include:

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury – A fireman named Montag slowly realizes his dystopian society burns knowledge by destroying books in rigid control over information flow. Key symbols recur representing renewal of life and hope, including the mythical Phoenix and the mockingbird.

Bradbury links mockingbirds with nostalgic memories of idyllic natural freedom. He final scene describes bombing destroying the city, while natural images like mockingbird songs play:

“The autumn leaves blew over the moonlit pavement in such a way as to make the girl who was moving there seem fixed to a sliding walk…Somewhere a night bird called.”

Beautiful mockingbird music then swells as Montag escapes to join rebels memorizing books to revive civilization.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston – In a story of fierce independence, Janie remembers her mystical early experiences around nature as she comes of age under a blossoming pear tree buzzing with bees:

“She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees…The inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace…”

Linked to this sensual natural scene, the novel describes “mockingbirds were singing” too, as Janie first discovers desire. Throughout Janie embraces her voice against those trying repress it. The mockingbird represents her defiant soul.

Big Fish by Daniel Wallace – In this magical father-son story, William Bloom hears singing outside his dying father’s window and remarks: “It was a mockingbird, still singing, holding onto its song like a man holds onto a lover.”

The mockingbird echoes Edward Bloom’s fantastic tales by representing the imaginative integrity upheld even on his deathbed. The bird signals enduring bonds through creativity’s power to overcome mortality through story’s symbolic immortality.

And of course, poets invoke mockingbirds often as well:

Emily Dickinson’s “The Mockingbird” speculates whimsically on the bird’s spring mating dance:

“I dreaded that first robin so / But he is mastered now…”

She wonders about love’s rituals:

“Were manners odious to me / Philandering feathered wight— / I might as well resent the bee / Seducing all the nights.”

“The Mocking-Bird” by John B. Tabb compares birds arriving in spring to musical notes, suggesting mockingbirds compose the overall seasonal symphony.

Dozens more examples demonstrate how deeply intertwined mockingbird symbolism remains with creative cultural expression. From folk to pop music too, their symbolic tunes have carried deep significance across generations.

Of course, as a creative symbol, mockingbirds contain even more multi-layered nuances in cultural imagination across history and contexts. However their core symbolic attributes relate to innocence, hope, idealism, integrity, creativity, spirituality and truth.