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More handpicked essays just for you.
Critical analysis of how to kill a mockingbird by Harper lee
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Theme is a message about life or human nature that the author writes about to get the reader to understand their work. Theme is important in writing because it helps the reader understand the story and better connect to main idea that the author is trying to convey. The two text that will be focused on are To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and various short stories from Eight Men by Richard Wright. To Kill A Mockingbird tells a story of the events that occur in the town of Maycomb County, Alabama, through the eyes of a young and curious girl named Jean Louise Finch (a.k.a Scout). Eight Men features eight short stories about eight men who encounter different situations. The specific stories being focused on in this essay are, The Man Who Lived Underground, Big Black Good Man, and The Man Who Killed A Shadow. This essay will analyze how the themes of injustice, profiling, and fear are portrayed in both To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee and various short stories in Richard Wright’s Eight Men. In addition, the essay will also identify and discuss how the mentioned themes are vital to the understanding of both novels. Injustice …show more content…
In, To Kill A Mockingbird, the theme of injustice is portrayed when Tom Robinson is accused for a rape crime that he did not commit. In the story, Mayella Ewell accused Tom Robinson for raping her. Tom was put on trial and admitted to the jury that Mayella had came was flirting with him and he resisted but was caught by Mayella’s father. Atticus knew Tom was innocent but still endured in defending Tom. In the text, Atticus told Uncle Jack,”The only thing we’ve got is a black man’s word against the Ewells” (Lee 91). Since Tom was african american in a majority white courtroom, he was found guilty even though he did not commit any crime. His rights were violated due to his
An idea that recurs in or pervades a work of art of literature can be referred to as a “Theme”. Themes often explore timeless and universal ideas and may be implied rather than stated explicitly. Theme is an important part of fictional stories. Several themes are presented in the novel to kill a mocking bird. One of the reoccurring themes in to kill a mockingbird is courage.
In To Kill a Mockingbird, the theme plays an important role during the course of the novel. Theme is a central idea in a work of literature that contains more than one word. It is usually based on an author’s opinion on a subject. The theme of innocence should be protected is found in conflicts, characters, and symbols. In To Kill a Mockingbird, a conflict that connects to the theme that innocence should be protected is the death of Tom Robinson.
One of the storylines in the novel is the Robinson-Ewell trial. Tom Robinson is an innocent African-American, accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a lower-class white girl. At the trial hearing, everyone is able to tell his or her side of the story before Tom is allowed to speak. All stories, however, offer two different versions of Tom and Mayella’s relationship. Moreover, Mayella and Bob Ewell tell the jury what they expect to hear, about Tom being a monster. They explain that there was no reason for his actions against Mayella. According to them, along with the rest of Maycomb, it's just expected that a black man would rape any white woman if he had the opportunity. The Tom spoken of by the Ewells shows the stereotypes that justify whites to be superior to blacks. However, Tom tells the jury about his innocence. He pr...
Tom was very confused when he was accused of this incident because he had never been anything more to Mayella Ewell than an acquaintance. “The older you grow the more of it you’ll see. The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box”(Lee 220). This is how Atticus described the trial to his son Jem because he could not comprehend how unjust the trial was unfolding on a daily basis. The proceedings were not equitable towards Tom Robinson because everyone should have realized at the trial that he had not done anything wrong. In the end, Atticus lost the trial. Not because the jury and judge thought Tom Robinson had committed the crime, but simply because he was black and they were racist. Tom was sent to jail for doing absolutely nothing wrong, except being black. He never had the luxury to grow into old age, as his life was taken from him when he was shot seventeen times during his attempt to escape from jail. Tom Robinson’s life would have been completely different if he had not been black. The discrimination would not have occurred and the accusations would not have been leveled or
Theme is the underlying power beneath a story; the “force” that makes the whole experience worthwhile. Theme is “an idea or message that the writer wishes to convey” (Holt 874). A theme can be either stated or implied. A stated theme is a theme “that the other expresses directly in his work (protic.net); an implied theme is a theme “that is not directly stated in the work” (protic.net). As mentioned before, both of these stories have an implied theme, which now is revealed to mean that the author of the story insinuated it. Themes exist in all stories (verbal or written) and can be long, short, true or false. “Earth people will beat out any other intelligent life-form in any and all competitions” is a theme, but “good always beats evil” is one too. “Once upon a time . . .” stories have themes too, except they are more one-dimensional. For example,...
In the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Atticus says “Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win” (Chapter 9). In this book, Atticus takes the case when Tom Robinson took advantage of a white woman, Mayella Ewell. Even though Tome was convicted guilty in this case, it was right for Atticus to defend Tom Robinson.
It is a sin to kill a mockingbird, mockingbirds are innocent birds that do not do one harm thing, but makes music for ones to enjoy. Tom Robinson is one of the novel’s “mockingbirds”, he is innocent but he was falsely convicted of rape and got killed. In a court, black man had never won over a white person. Tom Robinson, a black man was accused of raping Mayella Ewell, Mr. Ewell’s daughter. Atticus defends Tom Robinson because he had been appointed to defend for him, but it is also because of his morals. “Mr. Finch, I tried. I tried to 'thout bein' ugly to her. I didn't wanta be ugly, I didn't wanta push her or nothing” (Lee 260). During...
Towards the end of To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus decides to represent a colored man by the man of Tom Robinson, who is being accused of raping Mayella Ewell, Bob Ewell’s daughter. Atticus believes that Tom is innocent, but he does not think that Tom will be found not guilty because of they way the townsfolk treat colored people. They treat them like dirt; like they are worth nothing. Atticus went ahead and represented Tom despite the fact that he knew the townsfolk would call himself and his children names and treat them disrespectfully. Even Scout’s relative Francis said rude things about them. “‘I guess it ain't your fault if Uncle Atticus is a nigger-lover besides, but I'm here to tell you it certainly does mortify the rest of the family-...’ ‘Just what I said. Grandma says it's bad enough he lets you all run wild, but now he's turned out a nigger-lover we'll never be able to walk the streets of Maycomb agin. He's ruinin' the family, that's what he's doin'.’” Atticus set a good example for Scout and Jem. He had a difficult decision to make, but he chose what he thought was
First, Tom, formally known as Thomas Robinson was a black man who worked for a man named Link Deas. Tom was 25 years old, had three children and a wife named Helen. When he was 11 years old Tom’s left arm was caught in a cotton gin and he lost feeling in his left arm. Tom was accused of rape by a white woman named Mayella. Everyone hated him because it didn’t look good for a black man to be accused of raping a white woman. During his trial he had a white lawyer named Atticus, who did his best to prove that Tom was innocent and Mayella and her dad Bob Ewell were lying. Atticus says,”Did you resist her advances?, Mr.Finch, I tried to ‘thout bein ugly to her. I didn’t wanta push her or nothin.” stated Tom(Lee 195). Tom did not want to kiss her but he didn’t
Atticus is nearly fifty years old and he has a difficult task, to defend Tom Robinson, a twenty-five year old black man who is accused of raping Mayella Ewell. Mayella is a white woman at the age of nineteen, who is accusing Tom Robinson of a first degree crime. Atticus makes a controversial speech close to the ending of the trial, which makes people think of justice in an unusual way. “You know the truth, and the truth is this: some negros lie, some negros are immoral, some negro men are not to be trusted around our women-black or white. But this truth applies to the human race and no particular race of men” (Lee 273.)
In the novel Tom was accused of raping Mayella Ewell daughter of Bob Ewell, Tom couldn't have committed this crime because of his injury on his left arm. Tom was later on found guilty and the incarcerated, during his time in prison he was shot down while trying to escape and killed. “ To Maycomb, Tom's death was typical. Typical for a nigger to cut and run. Typical of a niggers mentality to have no plan. Nigger always come= out of them, “(244) What this quote is saying is that when Tom died it didn't cause any kind of guilt because the people were basing his reason for trying to escape on pure stereotypes of black people. “I certainly am. I do my best to love everybody,”(112) Atticus was one of the few white man who thought that Tom was more than just trash because of his skin. This shows my theme because most of the people in Maycomb thought that Tom was just like any other black stereotype and didn't think his life was worth saving, not because the evidence pointed to him being guilty but because he was
In the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, Tom Robinson, the black man falsely convicted of rape, had absolutely no chance of a fair trial. There is proof of this in the time period in which it occurred as well as evidence from the novel itself. Tom Robinson had an unfair trial because it was his word against the Ewell’s, a white, trashy family.
In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird we are presented with many events which question and look into the concepts of fairness and justice. These events make us ponder what truly is fair and bring to light the gross miscarriage of justice that was faced by people of colour in earlier times. Three major events that explore these ideas are Tom Robinson’s court case, a classroom discussion regarding Adolf Hitler and the death of Bob Ewell. Through these events, we come to realise the true discrimination faced by so many people of the time, and the how scarce the number of people in the novel who have proper ethical or ‘fair’ views is.
Tom Robinson’s trial, and in fact his entire life, was badly affected by racism. It is truly a testament to the corruption of society when a person who has earned a bad reputation is held in higher esteem than a person who was born with it, as is the case with Bob Ewell and Tom Robinson. Even though Tom was obviously honest in his testament, the jury sided with Bob Ewell because he was white. They made this decision despite the fact that the Ewell family was widely known to be a worthless part of society. Jem, not being racially prejudiced, could not understand this mentality. As Atticus pointed out, “If you (Jem) had been on the jury, son, and eleven other boys like you, Tom would be a free man.”
In To Kill a Mockingbird, the social prejudice against black people often puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to the law. A prime example of this is Tom Robinson, a hardworking, respectful black man who is accused of sexually assaulting a white woman on the sole account of her white father. Regardless of the lack of evidence the prosecution is able to bring to court, Tom Robinson remains at a disadvantage due to racial views. Because of this, the towns people also view Tom as guilty for a crime he did not commit. This makes him and anyone who associates with him strongly disliked.