Maycomb Essays

  • Free To Kill a Mockingbird Essays - The Families of Maycomb

    507 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Families of Maycomb In the novel there are two families in the town of Maycomb that are very different. The Cunningham's and the Ewells have contrasting and opposite reputations. The Cunningham's are very respected in the town while the Ewells very much despised by the community. The Cunningham's show the respectability of hard worker or, where as Ewells are considered lazy. Miss Maudie is another character in the town who lives next to the Finch family. She is similar to the Cunningham's

  • To Kill A Mockingbird: Prejudice In Maycomb

    648 Words  | 2 Pages

    To Kill A Mockingbird: Prejudice in Maycomb Two major people in To Kill A Mockingbird are prejudged; Boo Radley and Tom Robinson. One man is the victim of prejudice; Atticus Finch. These men are mockingbirds. For a mockingbird has never hurt anyone, and neither has Atticus Finch, Boo Radley, nor Tom Robinson. . Boo Radley is prejudged because he chooses to stay in his domicile. While Tom Robinson is prejudged because of his color. Atticus Finch becomes a victim of prejudice due to his valiancy

  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

    628 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the opening chapters of “To Kill A Mockingbird,” Harper Lee introduces several subtle instances of racism. However, when Jem and Scout are welcomed into Cal’s Church in chapter 12, the reader really gets to travel behind the false disguise of Maycomb County’s white society to see the harsh realities of the injustices suffered by the blacks. The black community is completely separate from the whites -- in fact, Cal lives in a totally different part of town! Another example of total racial segregation

  • To Kill A Mockingbird Essays: Why Defend a Black Man?

    964 Words  | 2 Pages

    their guilty or innocent, you can ceaselessly and effortlessly convict the animals for their color vice.  You can even turn a blind eye to the obvious truth.  And so did the "people", the white, narrow-minded, bigoted and  hypocritical people of Maycomb. The justification for why Atticus broke from the norm, and acted unlike most others in his community, can be compared to the motive of the central character in the novel, A Time To Kill, written by John Grisham.   The comparative character, a lawyer

  • Miss Caroline?s First Day

    887 Words  | 2 Pages

    Miss Caroline’s First Day It was the first day of school for many in Maycomb, including myself. I had just moved from a college in Winston Country. Almost 30 years have past since that day in Maycomb when I first saw the school I was to be teaching at. The classroom smelt stale after being closed up for the whole summer, as I met my students who I would teach for the next year. The one child I remember most had a trail of dirty footprints leading to his desk. The little horror looked like he was

  • Miss Maudie & Aunt Alex

    1623 Words  | 4 Pages

    Miss Maudie & Aunt Alex The Maycomb ladies provide an excellent example of racial prejudice, and a failure to see what it is like in someone else’s skin. They believe they are doing well by making money for missions, failing to see the hardship on their own doorsteps. Aunt Alexandra is very important to the novel, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ as she is a representative of these viewpoints, disapproving of Calpurnia and disassociating herself from the black community entirely. Miss Maudie however is

  • The Crucial Role of Symbols in To Kill a Mockingbird

    2059 Words  | 5 Pages

    people of Maycomb County are "infected" with racism (Jones 54). When Tom Robinson is brought to trial, convicted, and ultimately murdered for a crime he did not commit, no one in the town seems to show any compassion or regret for him other than Atticus. Atticus describes the people of Maycomb as "mad dogs that he must confront" by defending Tom (Lee 103). To prove the symbol further, Atticus is the person called upon to shoot and kill Tim Johnson. This action by the people of Maycomb, show their

  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

    545 Words  | 2 Pages

    characters who 'brought out' other characters' personality. Harper Lee displays that there is a lot of prejudice going on in Maycomb by putting the Cunninghams in the book. "The Cunninghams [were] country folks, farmers"(21) who are very honest people in Maycomb, they "never took anything they [could not] pay back"(23), but they are unfairly mistreated by part of the society in Maycomb. The Cunninghams are very poor people, but very honest as well. The Cunninghams have no money at all, as Scout was describing

  • To Kill A Mockinbird Racism, Sexism, Social Class Conflict

    1030 Words  | 3 Pages

    been reasons for insurmountable conflict. Maycomb County serves as an important backdrop to central issues which plagued early 20th century southern America: sexism, racism, and social class conflict. Prior to the feminist movement of the 1960s, women had to follow strict gender roles. Scout is a prime example of a female child struggling to fit these roles placed upon her by not only males in society, but women too. The moment Aunt Alexandra enters Maycomb, she places it upon herself to mould young

  • To Kill A Mockingbird Essay: Southern Tradition Exposed

    1939 Words  | 4 Pages

    traditional beliefs. To Kill A Mockingbird allows its readers to question and consider those beliefs. Maycomb represents a typical old southern town. Not many people move into Maycomb and not many people who live there journey beyond its boundaries. As a result, the opinions held by many of the citizens of Maycomb are left to grow and foster in the same families for many generations. The circumstances in Maycomb are less than ideal for generating change and more prone to sustaining traditionally accepted

  • To Kill A Mockingbird Essays: Civil Rights and Civil Wrongs

    1184 Words  | 3 Pages

    Civil Rights and Civil Wrongs in To Kill a Mockingbird In Harper Lee's novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, the author uses the small town of Maycomb, Alabama as a forum for different views on civil rights. On a smaller scale, Lee uses the relationship between Scout, her aunt, her father, and her housekeeper, to show how racism affects everything. The question of civil rights plays out not only through the trial of Tom Robinson, but also through the everyday interaction between the Finch family and their

  • To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee - Answers

    1294 Words  | 3 Pages

    attacks them. Sheriff Tate recognizes the vulnerability of Boo and that any publicity would destroy him, so he says that the death was an accident. Tom Robinson is actually killed and his death is a sin committed by the whole white community of Maycomb. All he tried to do was to abide by the rules of the society in which he lived and when a black person is asked to do a chore he obeys. The main enemies of birds are cats and Lee describes Mayella as being like ‘a steady-eyed cat with a twitchy tale’

  • Malevolent Phantom (To Kill a Mockingbird)

    1504 Words  | 4 Pages

    characters. Intolerance and ignorance in society is the cause of alienation. In Maycomb almost every person alienates Arthur Radley. The reader never really understands who Boo Radley is. Instead the reader hears the many opinions of the people in Maycomb. Harper Lee does this on purpose to demonstrate that no one has the right to judge another person because no one can be sure of another person’s position. People of Maycomb choose to believe what they hear about Arthur because “[p]eople generally see

  • To Kill a Mockingbird - Equality

    618 Words  | 2 Pages

    Racism in the town of Maycomb is nothing but disguised by the polite smiles and ladies missionary meetings; although it is the strongest belief that each person of the town holds apart from some such as Atticus. Racism is an issue of great importance, yet to the eye of a visitor waltzing through, it's just a slight whisk of air. Atticus is a good man, a just man. He upholds his morals, and judges by his conscience. He is shaken but not moved by the town of Maycomb in their gossip and hypocritical

  • The Ewell Residence in To Kill a Mockingbird

    1068 Words  | 3 Pages

    This is a description of the Ewell's home as well as an insight into the Ewells themselves.  We learn what kind of a father Robert is and the kind of life into which he has forced his eldest daughter, Mayella. We also see how the county of Maycomb cruelly discriminates against the black community even though they are more respectable than people like the Ewells. Lee uses such detail in the account of the Ewell cabin because the best way to understand the Ewells is to understand how they

  • The Reality of To Kill A Mockingbird

    1437 Words  | 3 Pages

    intense time in history. Harper Lee’s novel was intended to bring a harsh sense of reality to the real world, and demonstrate how it really was during this time in history. This novel is set in Maycomb, Alabama, somewhere during the time period of 1925-1935. Times were hard for the citizens of Maycomb during this period, because of the depression. There are many fictional events in this novel related to non-fictional racial events in history. Leading the list of racial crimes would be hate

  • Loss of Innocence in To Kill a Mockingbird

    2420 Words  | 5 Pages

    Loss of Innocence in To Kill a Mockingbird "Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square."(Lee 9). This environment, as Scout Finch accurately describes, is not conducive to young children, loud noises, and games. But, the Finch children and Dill must occupy themselves in order to avoid boredom. Their surroundings are their boundaries, but in their minds

  • Lees Philosophy To Kill A Mock

    713 Words  | 2 Pages

    grew up in Maycomb County; a fictional town in Alabama inspired by the Monroe County, Harper Lee’s hometown. Scout’s father, Atticus Finch, was a defense attorney during the Great Depression. Just like everyone in Maycomb County, his economic conditions were very poor. Judge Taylor assigns him the task of defending Tom Robinson, a married black man accused of raping the eldest daughter of Bob Ewell, the head of a family that “…had been the disgrace of Maycomb for three generations

  • To Kill A Mockingbird - Knowledge and Courage

    1083 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lee expresses the merciless global racism through her book. Not only are the colored people criticized from the whites but also the Radleys are part of the white society that was discriminated. The Radleys lived differently from the rest of the Maycomb people. However, just by living in a different style, the people believed that they were different human beings. Even Jeremy described Boo Radley as "[he] [is] about six-and-a- half feet tall, judging form his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels

  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee - Themes

    2934 Words  | 6 Pages

    in the 1930's. To them it was not right for a Negro to feel pity for any member of the white community. Another example of racial prejudice in the novel is at Aunt Alexandra's `lady's meeting'. It also shows the hypocrisy that took place in Maycomb. Miss Merriweather goes on to explain the "sin and squalor" that is suffered by "those poor Mrunas" and makes herself seem most ethnically aware, but the she refers to Helen Robinson as; "That darky's wife" The way that Miss Merriweather uses this