To Kill a Mockingbird Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Laurie Champion

Critical Essay by Laurie Champion

SOURCE: Champion, Laurie. “Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.” Explicator 61, no. 4 (summer 2003): 234-36.

In the following essay, Champion explicates the symbolic use of the terms “right” and “left” in To Kill a Mockingbird, arguing that “right” in the novel symbolizes virtue, while “left” symbolizes iniquity.

Throughout Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, besides the ordinary connotations of “right” and “left” as opposing spatial directions, the terms also work on a subtler level: “right” suggesting virtue and “left” suggesting iniquity.

Connotations of “right” and “left” play a crucial role during the climactic trial scenes. Building evidence against Bob Ewell, Atticus asks Sheriff Tate which one of Mayella's eyes was bruised the night she was attacked, and Tate replies, “Her left.” Atticus asks, “Was it her left facing you or her left looking the same way you were?” (179). Tate says, “Oh yes, that'd make it her right. It was...
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