What is the significance of Lee’s use of light and dark in Chapter 15 of "To Kill a Mockingbird"?

Light and dark usually symbolizes good and evil and in this case that is what Harper Lee intended. Chapter 15 is the first fight between good and evil. The group of men who come to the Finch house in the evening are there to persuade Atticus to have Tom Robinson held somewhere besides Maycomb. They come under the cover of darkness because, in the light, their requisition would appear irrational. The darkness seems to cover the fact that they should be outstanding citizens and friends of the Finch’s. Their actions prove otherwise when they threaten Atticus by telling him he has “everything to lose from this” (Lee, Ch. 15).

 

Later that night when Atticus goes to sit watch over Tom Robinson in the jail, he brings along a single lamp. The lamp seems to symbolize what is just, and the fact that Atticus is in possession of the lamp tells the reader that he is the one trying to shed light on the fact that prejudices are wrong.