To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

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To Kill a Mockingbird Research Paper
In To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee it is very evident that her life experiences when paired with the era in which she lived helped her develop this piece of iconic American literature. The themes and subtle critiques of the society she grew up in are reflected in To Kill a MockingBird, which is what made this book one of the greatest literary works of all time. She grew up in a time of great social inequality and prejudice towards African Americans.This is one of the many examples of her life that formed a major theme in this book, her foremost popular work.
Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28th, in the year 1926. She grew up in the small town of Monroeville, Alabama. Racism and segregation had been and still was prevalent in the South even though the Civil War had ended over 60 years ago. Harper Lee is the descendant of Robert E Lee, a confederate general during the Civil War. Despite being a confederate, Robert E Lee was against slavery. The fact that she had such an influential family member who was opposed to slavery most likely influenced her own ideas about racism. This was not her only family member who influenced her writing of To Kill a Mockingbird.
Lee’s father was a very prominent figure in her life, one she often looked up to. She has confirmed that her dad was the inspiration for the protagonist of To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch (Finch was her father's nickname)(“Harper Lee”.) In the book, Atticus is portrayed as a wise and just father figure who always knows what is best to do. Her father was a lawyer just like Atticus in the book. Her father defended two black men accused of murder, very similarly to how Atticus defended Tom Robinson. Although H...

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... message are now embracing it. Crespino, writer of “The Strange Career of Atticus Finch”, states that racism is a problem of individuals and should be dealt with on an individual basis (Hacht 480). There is no doubt that To Kill a Mockingbird was a highly controversial novel for its time.
Harper Lee is an excellent author. She was able to take many elements of her personal life and reflect them into her greatest masterpiece To Kill a Mockingbird. She not only took parts of her life that she enjoyed, but also the ones that she did not, such as racial inequality. Lee was able to take this negative that was not only present in her life but in the lives of millions of Americans during that time. She was able to critique this unfairness in a subtle yet obvious way that earned her the many well deserved accolades for writing this quintessent piece of American literature.

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