To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee has become a mainstay in American high-schools. This is a classic novel that has inspired many people of all ages. It had a big impact on how people viewed and treated each other. This is a story that teaches everyone about the value of honesty, love, friendship and trust. Every word written in this book has a truly deep meaning to it. The time period that the book was written in was during the Great Depression in the 1930’s. This setting was in a small town in Maycomb, Alabama with people who did not get along. During this time there was a lot of segregation within America and different races. To Kill a Mockingbird is about a family who believes in doing the right thing and being honest. There was a court case that had gone viral about a black man who raped a white woman. A white lawyer named Atticus Finch gave his all to defend a black man named Tom Robinson. There was no evidence that showed that Tom raped Mayella Ewell and he was convicted guilty because of his color. When a black folk was accused of something they are immediately accused guilty. To Kill a Mockingbird should be taught in American high-schools because it teaches students about segregation/racism, right from wrong, and courage.
Think back to a time when you have felt utterly powerless. That was the same feeling that many African Americans felt in the first half of the twentieth century. The time period was filled with hate and ignorance towards minorities, especially in the American South. This is the setting of Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Characters like Tom Robinson are subjected to the community’s hate and arrogance and end up in situations with little or no control of their fate. The central theme, racism, in To Kill a Mockingbird shows that African Americans were not accepted as equals in Maycomb County, the geographical location the story occurs, children like Jem and Scout Finch who were left perplexed by inequality and prejudice, and the citizens of the county who accepted racism and did nothing to better the situation for African Americans.
The theme of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mocking Bird is the existence of racism and prejudice in the 1930 – 40's. Harper Lee succeeds in presenting the topic in a manner that is not overly simplistic and thus achieves the task of allowing the reader to fully appreciate the complex nature of unjust discrimination. Harper Lee's inclusion of characters such as Tom Robinson, Boo Radley, Dolphus Raymond and many others, aid the reader to grasp the concept of racism and its central role in the town of Maycomb.
Abraham Joshua Heschel, a famous Jewish rabbi and philosopher, once said, “Racism is man’s gravest threat to man - the maximum hatred for a minimum reason.” This sentence said by Heschel directly reflects Harper Lee’s message about racism and hatred in her To Kill A Mockingbird. To Kill A Mockingbird revolves around an imaginary town, Maycomb, Alabama. The developing conflict is the problem of a trial against an innocent black man named Tom Robinson. His accuser, Bob Ewell is a low-class white man that wants to harm Tom to get himself a better reputation. From the story of the trial, we learn what effects racism can have on a community. Racism in communities is a leading cause of hatred against other shown by Atticus Finch and Bob Ewell in
Author Harper Lee discusses the effects of ignorance and the toll it takes on people during the Great Depression in To Kill A Mockingbird. She portrays examples of sexism, prejudice, and racism, within the lives of the poverty-stricken citizens of Maycomb.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is widely celebrated due to the novel’s contemporary commentary on racism. Although the novel obviously discusses racist attitudes, it is really about stereotyping. While racism is one the the main focuses, many groups of people in the novel face harsh, inaccurate stereotypes. Women are expected to be “proper” and “ladylike”, African Americans are seen as deceitful and untrustworthy and the mentally handicapped are portrayed as freaks and monsters by the town’s people. Harper Lee not only addresses racism in her novel and the focus may seem to be only about the trial of Tom Robinson, but Lee portrays a deeper understanding of stereotyping as a whole throughout the entire novel.
The novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, tells the story of a nice, kind man named Atticus Finch who has to defend a black man wrongly prosecuted for this crime. The main characters are scout who you see the whole story through her eyes and Atticus who the whole conflict of the story is base around. The book takes place in Alabama in the 1930’s during the Great Depression. The story is really about the life of the Finch’s when they are put up with the conflict of Atticus having to a black man, which in the time period was not socially acceptable to anyone in the town. In the book Lee reveals the injustice of racism through the Tom Robinson case. This theme appears in the novel when Atticus is giving is closing statements, when Scout
In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee, the novel portrays examples of racial and social prejudice through the way mankind acts towards other people without even thinking. Within the book, Harper Lee raises awareness about racial, social prejudice and Loss of Innocence by the way people act towards African Americans and How children learn during the Great Depression in the 1930s.
The novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee is a simplistic view of life in the Deep South of America in the 1930s. An innocent but humorous stance in the story is through the eyes of Scout and Jem Finch. Scout is a young adolescent who is growing up with the controversy that surrounds her fathers lawsuit. Her father, Atticus Finch is a lawyer who is defending a black man, Tom Robinson, with the charge of raping a white girl. The lives of the characters are changed by racism and this is the force that develops during the course of the narrative.
An analysis of The Great Depression shows connections to the novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird” and today’s society through prejudice, poverty, and racism shown throughout the novel.
A small city nestled in the state of Alabama, Maycomb has got its faults, just like any other place in the world, but one of its main faults or (pg.88) “Maycomb's usual disease,” as Atticus calls it in the book is prejudice. Jem and Scout learn a lot about prejudice when a black man named Tom Robinson is accused of raping a white woman named Mayella Ewell and their father, Atticus, is called on to be his lawyer. They realize the hate that people have buried deep within their heart when they see a black man accused of doing something only because of his color. On pg.241, Scout starts understanding this and thinks, “Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.” As the case continues, up until the death of Tom Robinson, Jem and Scout learn more and more about prejudice and how the hate that people have towards others causes them to take wrong actions. They also see how unfair it is that a white man can get treated better and think of himself better than a black man only because he was born white. This prejudice and the trial cause Jem and Scout to get in argum...
In Harper Lee’s novel, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, characters and themes are constructed from the setting and time. The story takes place in 1933 to 1935, during the Great Depression. Maycomb, a fictional town in Alabama, has been used to explain and develop the idea of what it was like to live in a town with a strong sense of social status. Harper explores the extent of racism and social issues through the Tom Robinson’s case, using setting to connect with the inequitable decisions of the courtroom. During, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, we can get a clear understanding that Scout’s innocence through the setting of her upbringing has prevailed in her adult years.
Jem and Scout had learned a lot over the years about racism, social inequality, and “the simple hell people give to each other” (269). Maycomb’s citizens are unaware of the actions they make and ignore the consequences. Certain people are judged just for their appearance such as a black man. They are judged just like the cover of a book, where Maycomb is unable to open the book and read it. Even the mockingbirds are judged unfairly due to the uncertainty of society to actually learn something about the person and understand. Ultimately, Mr. Dolphus Raymond, Mayella Ewell, and the Cunninghams are all innocent; but Maycomb’s citizens, contaminated with racism and prejudice, are unable to read and understand one another.
“To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee is a novel set in the 1930s in a racially prejudice town called Maycomb County. A black man is accused of raping a white girl, and although it’s clear that he did not do it, the all white jury refuse to take a black man’s word over a white girl’s. Through the innocent eyes of an eight year old girl, the theme of racial prejudice is developed throughout the novel, although at times she is oblivious to it. In this essay I am going to discuss how Lee develops the theme of racial prejudice in the novel “To Kill A Mockingbird”.
During the Great Depression, racism was a common practice in the southern states of the US. Negros and those who opposed the intolerance were often discriminated by the rest of the bias and ignorant society, who believed in white supremacy and superiority over the other races. Maycomb, a racist town, exemplify this discrimination, imperiously judging others they view as being dissimilar from themselves. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, the author, weaves a brilliant story of prejudice, discrimination, and racism shown through the novel’s several characters and events, producing a mirror reflection of America’s racist society in the 1930’s.