ote Jem is shocked by Tom Robinson's guilt. He does not understand that even in a court of law, justice does not always serve the upper-hand and in Tom Robinson's case justice was not served and he was shunned from society and arrested not through concrete facts but through hatred and prejudice. The vision of a morose child walking through a mob of smiling faces, over the unfair trial of a black man symbolizes how indecent and intolerant the people at the time were. And Jem questions his father on its fairness through teary eyes and it is at this point Jem reaches a jaded epiphany, a revelation of how unfair the world truly is.
             "Tom's dead." Aunt Alexandra put her hands over to her mouth. "They shot him," said Atticus. "He was running. It was during their exercise period. They said he just broke into a blind raving charge at the fence and started climbing over...The guards called to him to stop. They fired a few shots in the air, then to kill. They got him just as he went over the fence. They said if he'd had two good arms he'd have made it, he was moving that fast. Seventeen bullet holes in him. They didn't need to shoot him that much." (235)
             Willing to die trying then risk suffering an innocent man in prison, Tom Robinson ran from his white oppressors and tried to clear the prison fence. This did not work though and the prison guards shot him seventeen times, a ridiculous amount of bullets considering two would kill him out righ
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