More handpicked essays just for you.
Effects of the great depression essay
The effect of the great depression
Effects of the great depression essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The new historical lens is essential to a story because it allows the reader to understand the events before and during the setting of the story. The historical lens focuses on how the characters interpret their decisions based on their time period. Historical criticism is where in order to understand a literary piece, the reader needs to understand the social background,and the cultural surroundings. The historical lens is about the background knowledge of story mostly. He focuses on why people do things based on the time period. And approach often used is to imagine what people felt when they read the the story when it first came out. Through this approach a historical critic would be able to examine how the piece is reflected. A main point …show more content…
This lens is unique because it feels like the readers back in the time experiencing a different time period. The historical lens allows the reader to learn a lot about how far history has come. Another benefit would be that if the reader knows what history events are going on, it makes the story easier to understand and more “meaningful” (Gillespie 3). Although the reader will often have to do research of their own to understand specific historical events they've never heard of. When a reader applies the historical lens to the story it gives them a better visual of what it was like with the story was read when it was first published to now. The reader is able to understand the different reactions the story produces. The historical lens gives the reader the ability to “live” through a different time period and have opinions of why people would do something different compared to now. Like in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, the reader would not understand the type of language used or the outcomes of specific situations unless they were looking through the historical …show more content…
The theme of the novel is that the world contains evil and good. Scout and Jem represent innocence, and how they have never really witnessed evil until the trial starts.Since the novel was placed in the 30s the reader can clearly see the gender inequality that is interpreted throughout the novel. Gender inequality is where a gender gets treated differently based on what gender they are, and how they are “suppose” to act. During the depression era women were not as high profile as men, and they were meant to stay at home and handle the household duties. If they were to get a job they were not paid as much, and not treated as high priority or a-list positions. In the novel Jem often offends Scout because she complains or whines. “I was not so sure, but Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that's why other people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one I could just go off and find some to play with”(Lee 41). Scout did not want to play the game where they reenact Arthur Radley’s life, and Jem says she is acting like a girl. It's almost as if she is only like a girl when she acts a certain way, but not the fact that she was born a girl. Scout does whatever she can to keep from being called a girl. Mrs. Dubose also comments about Scout being a girl, and how
Even though many social forces impact Scout in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, gender impacts Scout the greatest. It affects her in how other people treat her. Unexpectedly, Aunt Alexandra shows up at the Finch household, and Scout asks why she had just shown up. Aunt Alexandra replies, “We decided that it would be good for you to have some feminine influence. It won’t be many years, Jean Louise, before you become interested in clothes and boys” (127). After Alexandra says this, Scout becomes puzzled because she does not think she needs a “feminine influence”. But, as she becomes older she is expected to act more lady like. Since she is a girl, she is expected to act prim and proper. Her being raised around men is acting against these stereotypes. Certainly, it is obvious that boys are more daring than girls. So while Jem and Dill want to get a sneak peak inside of Boo Radley’s house, Scout gets a little apprehensive. Jem shouts out, “Scout I’m telling you for the last time shut your trap or go home. I declare to the lord you’re getting more like a girl every day,” (51-52). After Jem said this, she decides she has no option but to join them. She does...
Most girls that grew up in the time that Scout did would be wearing dresses and acting in a more feminine manner. Some of this can be credited due to Atticus’s hands-off parenting style, he doesn’t push Scout towards stereotypical gender roles. Scout seems to represent a very early and mild form of feminism in the south. When problems arise in the book she often questions or examines them as a personal responsibility and seeks a resolution. This is a key difference because in feminism ethics, men often view something right or wrong instead of seeking a resolution. Scout’s moral development is probably a blend of feminism and Atticus’s ethics of virtue (Solomon, 323-325). As morally developed as she is at such a young age, Scout doesn’t always grasp basic social etiquette (she tells her teacher that one of the students is too poor to pay for lunch). Human behavior can confuse her, this is especially true in the case of race and racism. She is
While the women in Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird come in a variety of personalities and backgrounds, all of their lives are led by one constricting factor; their gender. Scout's upbringing as a young woman greatly contrasts that of her brother Jem. Jem is educated as a young boy growing into a man while Scout’s journey is taken as a woman. The manacle of womanhood is but a concept if one does not consider the harsh faults and inhibiting limits of men or rather the struggle for “masculinity” that men are similarly constrained. Though she is repeatedly told to have ladylike manners and to dress in more feminine way, Scout mostly denies this norm but is still able to become a young
Miss. Maudie was a sweet little old lady that tells Scout lessons, that it’s not nice to talk about people, and that you have to be sweet and support your father even if other people don't support him. Also when Miss.Maudie's house burned down she was very calm and she didn't freak out like they thought she would have so it taught Scout that you can't show your feelings all the time. “Grieving, Child? Why, I hated that old cow barn. Thought of settin’ fire to it a hundred times myself, except they’d lock me up.”(73). That she took something so awful and made it into something happy and that now she can have small house and a bigger garden now. Scout Aunt Alexandria always wanted Scout to act more like a lady and Scout never really liked her Aunt in the beginning. Now in the middle of the book she was really upset and then she got her act together and Scout saw that and she admired it and then she did the same this is showing matured happening. “We decided that it would be best for you to have some feminine influences.”(). That her Aunt doesn’t think that Atticus is raising them right so she is there to take over while the trail is going on. Scout went to school and her teacher Miss.Caroline is really mean to Scout because she doesn't like it how Scout already knows how to read and write. Miss.Caroline doesn't really scout anything because, she already knows what to do. “If i didn’t have to stay I’d leave, Jem, that damn lady says Atticus’s been teaching me to read and for him to stop it-.”(18). Scout doesn’t like that her teacher is punishing her for knowing stuff and she doesn't understand why she does this. That these lady have somehow impacted Scout life of her growing up and moving on to new and better things in
This was introduced to them in the form of Aunt Alexandra. The Scout was crushed when Aunt Alexandra sent Atticus to talk to the Scout and Jem. "You are not run-of-the-mill people, that you are the product of several generations gentle breeding.try to behave like the little lady and gentleman that you are' " (Lee 133). Scout was upset because he was essentially telling her not to be herself. Aunt Alexandra wanted to change Scout's personality to conform to society's ideas of what was right for a girl in those times. It seemed like Atticus had almost encouraged them to find their own way, despite the disapproval of many in town; overalls were allowed for Scout, a female, and they had free run of the surrounding few houses during the day.
The setting affects the character development of Scout as she faces the troubles of acting like a “girl” (4.41) because she dislikes acting in the ladylike manner that is expected of women in the 1950s. Furthermore, Scout fears that acting like a “girl” would lead Dill and Jem to stop interacting with her due to the feeling of the subtle
Gender - At the time the novel is set, women were still regarded as unequal to men. Scout learns this from:
The study of past events have been a common practice of mankind since the verbal telling of stories by our ancestors. William Cronon, in his article “Why the Past Matters,” asserts that the remembrance of the past “keeps us in place.” Our individual memories and experiences shape how we act in our daily lives. In addition to influencing us at an individual level, our collective history binds us together as a society. Without knowing where we have been or what we have experienced, it is nearly impossible to judge progress or know which courses of action to pursue. The goal of the historian is to analyze and explain past events, of which they rarely have firsthand memory of, and apply the gained knowledge to make connections with current and future events.
After the jury decided that Tom would be sentenced to death Jem and Scout are confused why “you never see anybody from Maycomb on a jury-they all come from the woods” (221 Lee)” Atticus honestly answers,”For one thing, Miss Maudie can't serve on a jury because she's a woman-’ Scout says ‘You mean women in Alabama can't-?’" (221 Lee) Scout believes that men and women are equal and aren’t smarter than one another. Normally women or girls don’t question if they can be on a jury or not, they just accept it. However, Scout breaks gender roles by questioning why someone can’t be on a jury just because of their gender. She’s in awe when she realizes someone as smart as Miss Maudie can’t be in the jury just because she’s a woman. Jem and Scout first meet the 7 year old Charles “Dill” Baker Harris reading a book at his Aunt Rachel’s house. Dill introduces himself and that he can read and if Jem needed anything to be read he can do it for him. That caused him to show off his little sister. “Scout yonder's been readin’ ever since she was born and she ain’t even started school yet (7 Lee)” In the south during the 1930s women weren’t expected to read. School wasn’t supposed to care or be the focus. They were supposed to have other things on their minds like how the look, making sure they act like a proper lady and being able to cook.
Sexism is not as common a topic in comparison to racism, but does play a role in the development of the novel. This type of discrimination is expressed towards women from men and women alike. Men feel compelled to protect women from unsightly things, (Lee 221), and the women in Maycomb have the mind set that, to be a lady, they must conform to society's expectations of them. They believe they must dress, act, and speak a certain way to appease the community. Aunt Alexandra is a big believer in acting the way society expects her to and attempts to impose these values on her niece, Scout, who becomes mortified, as she has always been a tomboy and prefers spending time in the dirt. “Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my [Scout's] attire. She said I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches; when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn't supposed ...
Scout is the narrator of the whole book. She is the young daughter of a lawyer, Atticus. They live in Maycomb County with Scout's brother and Aunt in the 1930's. At the beginning of the book, she doesn’t know much about the prejudice of Southern America. She basically knows nothing about prejudice. She thinks every person is the same as her. But she finds that out at last. She also finally finds out that most people are nice. She just has to put herself in those people's situations. "As I made my way home, I thought Jem and I would get grown but there wasn't much else left for us to learn, except possibly algebra" (Lee pg. #). This statement shows that she understands the prejudice and people's thinking, at last. That makes her life a lot different.
Besides discrimination and white privilege, gender discrimination also plays a role in this novel/film. Jem and Scout have grown up without a mother, and has a black house servant, Calpurnia, stand as a mother figure even though her and Scout do not get along. Throughout the movie, Scout is portrayed as not wanting to wear dresses and not acting “ladylike” as Calpurnia says. These two clash throughout the film because of Calpurnia’s expectations of being a “lady” and how Scout takes “being a girl” as an
In most countries, women only earn between 60 and 75% of men’s wages, for the same work. Sexism is still a problem in today’s society, but it has improved since Scout’s generation in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Scout believes from an early age that girls aren’t good, and that she can avoid the judgement that comes with being a girl by not acting like one. Being a girl for Scout is less a matter of what she's born with and more a matter of what she does. Scout’s elders influence her perception of womanhood by putting preconceived sexist views in her head. In “To Kill a Mockingbird” Harper Lee shows the reader how all women are expected to act lady like and be proper through the actions of Mrs. Dubose, Jem, and Atticus.
It is possible that the personal point of view of the filmmaker defines the way the historical world is presented to the audience, but still, it has to be a representation of it and not suggested trough a fictional allegory.
Historical Criticism is criticism that “considers how military, social, cultural, economic, scientific, intellectual, literary, and every other kind of history helps us to understand the author and the work” (Lynn 142). Simply stated, unlike the previously discussed criticisms, Historical Criticism connects a work to certain times or places, revealing its historical influences. Therefore, the reader is required to perform research in order to learn more about the author’s life, the author’s time period and culture, and the way of reasoning during that time. Accordingly, with a critical eye, the reader should relate the information back to the work which will provide the reader with a richer understanding of the reading as well as with author’s message to the reader (Lynn 29-31). Beyond “close reading”, the reader must research what establishes the foundation of the work. Although, below the foundation of a work there lies an even richer understanding of the