In every story, there are themes that underline the meaning of the story so as not to leave the reader hanging. So what is a theme? A theme is a fundamental and often universal idea explored in a literary work. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird there are three main themes that commonly appear throughout the story. These themes will help resolve any problems in the story and help readers understand the meaning. The first theme is the coexistence of good and evil throughout the story. The way the book shows the moral nature of people, essentially their good and bad sides. The book furthers this theme by using the transformation of the Scouts' and Jems' view of childhood innocence, in which they believe that everyone is good, because they have never been exposed to evil, into a more adult view, in which they have been exposed to bad. many kinds of evil and must apply it to their thinking. An important subtheme of this book concerns the danger that hatred, prejudice, and ignorance pose to many innocent people. The people in the book affected by this are Boo Radley and Tom Robinson. These two are unprepared for the evil they have been exposed to and have been mentally destroyed as a result. Jem also experiences the same affection when he discovers the evil of racism, in which his faith in justice and humanity is lost. However, Scout retains her faith in justice and humanity, because the case had no effect on her. In this book, the voice of morality is Atticus Finch, who already experiences and understands evil, but does not lose faith in humanity's ability to be good. He understands that basically everyone has both good and bad qualities, but it is more important to appreciate the good ones. The worldview is that... middle of paper... in some ways he's more successful than most white people in Maycomb. The rigid social divisions revealed by the book show how the adult world is irrational and dangerous, as when Scout has difficulty understanding why Aunt Alexandra won't let her talk to young Walter Cunningham. The corruption of Maycomb's social ladder shows how hard the Great Depression hit the city and how it greatly affected the residents. A theme is a fundamental and often universal idea explored in a literary work. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird there are three main themes: the coexistence of good and evil, the importance of moral education and the presence of social inequality. These themes help the story be what it is and help create a proper setting, plot, conflict, and characters. The themes of the book have good meaning and make the book what it is.