In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, author Harper Lee foreshadows the verdict of Tom Robinson’s trial by using similar language to that of when Atticus shoots the dog, Tim Johnson. Furthermore, much the same to how Tim Johnson was infected with rabies, Lee illustrates through the commonalities between the two passages that the town of Maycomb is infected with the disease of racism and that Maycomb’s inhabitants are without a cure.
Initially, Lee first begins to foreshadow the trial’s verdict when she compares the atmosphere’s of chapter 10 and 21. In chapter 10, right before Tim Johnson is shot by Atticus, the neighborhood is described as a “deserted waiting street” where “the mockingbirds were silent [and] the carpenters at Miss Maudie’s …show more content…
Lee deliberately uses the words written prior in chapter 10 to recreate the mood of impending doom for readers. This literary technique then allows readers to come to their own blatant realization- that Tom Robinson’s fate is a carbon copy of the rabid Tim Johnson’s. Additionally, Lee’s tactful organization strategy of having the identical language be at the beginning of both passages further emphasizes Tom Robinson’s lurking guilty sentence. Another instance in which Lee uses tactful organization to foreshadow the jury’s verdict was when she uses phrases from chapter 10 at the end of the passage. Right before Tim Johnson is shot in chapter 10, Atticus, the dog’s executioner, “moved like an underwater swimmer” (125) in the seconds before he pulled the trigger, sealing Tim Johnson’s fate. Likewise, just as the jury returns to the courtroom, carrying the weight of being Tom Robinson’s executioners with them, they also are described to have “a dreamlike quality” in which they too moved “like underwater swimmers” (281). Once again, by re-using phrases from chapter 10, Lee conveys the tone of finality to readers and allows them to predict Tom Robinson’s