Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary
devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Gothic Details
The forces of good and evil in To Kill a Mockingbird seem
larger than the small Southern town in which the story takes place.
Lee adds drama and atmosphere to her story by including a number
of Gothic details in the setting and the plot. In literature, the
term Gothic refers to a style of fiction first popularized in eighteenth-century
England, featuring supernatural occurrences, gloomy and haunted
settings, full moons, and so on. Among the Gothic elements in To
Kill a Mockingbird are the unnatural snowfall, the fire
that destroys Miss Maudie’s house, the children’s superstitions
about Boo Radley, the mad dog that Atticus shoots, and the ominous
night of the Halloween party on which Bob Ewell attacks the children. These
elements, out of place in the normally quiet, predictable Maycomb,
create tension in the novel and serve to foreshadow the troublesome
events of the trial and its aftermath.
Small-Town Life
Counterbalancing the Gothic motif of the story is the
motif of old-fashioned, small-town values, which manifest themselves
throughout the novel. As if to contrast with all of the suspense
and moral grandeur of the book, Lee emphasizes the slow-paced, good-natured
feel of life in Maycomb. She often deliberately juxtaposes small-town
values and Gothic images in order to examine more closely the forces
of good and evil. The horror of the fire, for instance, is mitigated
by the comforting scene of the people of Maycomb banding together
to save Miss Maudie’s possessions. In contrast, Bob Ewell’s cowardly
attack on the defenseless Scout, who is dressed like a giant ham
for the school pageant, shows him to be unredeemably evil.
