<P> Scholar Patrick Chura, who suggests Emmett Till was a model for Tom Robinson, enumerates the injustices endured by the fictional Tom that Till also faced . Chura notes the icon of the black rapist causing harm to the representation of the "mythologized vulnerable and sacred Southern womanhood". Any transgressions by black males that merely hinted at sexual contact with white females during the time the novel was set often resulted in a punishment of death for the accused . Tom Robinson's trial was juried by poor white farmers who convicted him despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence, as more educated and moderate white townspeople supported the jury's decision . Furthermore, the victim of racial injustice in To Kill a Mockingbird was physically impaired, which made him unable to commit the act he was accused of, but also crippled him in other ways . Roslyn Siegel includes Tom Robinson as an example of the recurring motif among white Southern writers of the black man as "stupid, pathetic, defenseless, and dependent upon the fair dealing of the whites, rather than his own intelligence to save him". Although Tom is spared from being lynched, he is killed with excessive violence during an attempted escape from prison, being shot seventeen times . </P> <P> The theme of racial injustice appears symbolically in the novel as well . For example, Atticus must shoot a rabid dog, even though it is not his job to do so . Carolyn Jones argues that the dog represents prejudice within the town of Maycomb, and Atticus, who waits on a deserted street to shoot the dog, must fight against the town's racism without help from other white citizens . He is also alone when he faces a group intending to lynch Tom Robinson and once more in the courthouse during Tom's trial . Lee even uses dreamlike imagery from the mad dog incident to describe some of the courtroom scenes . Jones writes, "(t) he real mad dog in Maycomb is the racism that denies the humanity of Tom Robinson...When Atticus makes his summation to the jury, he literally bares himself to the jury's and the town's anger ." </P> <P>--Lee Smith </P> <P> In a 1964 interview, Lee remarked that her aspiration was "to be...the Jane Austen of South Alabama ." Both Austen and Lee challenged the social status quo and valued individual worth over social standing . When Scout embarrasses her poorer classmate, Walter Cunningham, at the Finch home one day, Calpurnia, their black cook, chastises and punishes her for doing so . Atticus respects Calpurnia's judgment, and later in the book even stands up to his sister, the formidable Aunt Alexandra, when she strongly suggests they fire Calpurnia . One writer notes that Scout, "in Austenian fashion", satirizes women with whom she does not wish to identify . Literary critic Jean Blackall lists the priorities shared by the two authors: "affirmation of order in society, obedience, courtesy, and respect for the individual without regard for status". </P>

Where did the title to kill a mockingbird come from