To Kill a Mockingbird is a brilliant novel by Harper Lee that engraves moral lessons within its pages. The novel has many themes such as the true meaning of courage, the importance of education, and that a child’s perception is wiser than an adult’s. Throughout the novel, Harper Lee uses skillful language to tell her story and connect to her audience. Harper Lee utilizes literal language, symbolism, and imagery to bring the meaning of To Kill a Mockingbird to life.
Lee manipulates literal language, such as dialogue and dialect to fundamentally relate her meaning to readers. Each character has his or her individual personality, emotions, and life, but the meaning of each life and his or her words become clear only in the dialogue. “‘Bit by bit, I told him the day’s misfortunes. ‘—and she said you taught me all wrong, so we can’t ever read any more, ever. Please don’t send me back, please sir.’ […] ‘First of all,’ he said, ‘if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—’ ‘Sir?’ ‘—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it’” (Lee 39). The dialogue helps readers learn and understand the characters and the inherent meaning. Dialogue helps readers figure out what characters think, what they feel, and what they stand for as well. For example, when Atticus explains to Scout why he takes Tom’s case:
“‘If you shouldn’t be defendin’ him, then why are you doin’ it?’ ‘For a number of reasons,’ said Atticus. ‘The main one is, if I didn’t I couldn’t hold up my head in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislature, I couldn’t even tell you or Jem not to do something again.’ ‘You mean if you d...
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...image blurred with my sudden tears” (Lee 362).
The image of Arthur Radley gives the reader a chance to see Arthur and the devastation Arthur experiences. Harper Lee powerfully applies imagery to help readers connect and experience her novel.
The use of literal language, symbolism, and imagery animates To Kill a Mockingbird, helping bring Harper Lee’s meaning to life. Harper Lee employs literal language to give characters a unique voice and add meaning. She practices symbolism to give her novel a deeper understanding. Her use of imagery gives readers a chance to personally experience the story and connect to its purpose. Harper Lee cleverly utilizes language to breathe life into her novel and allow the purpose to connect to her audience in a fundamental way.
Works Cited
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. 50th Anniversary ed. New York: Grand Central, 1982. Print.
The book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, which is one of the best books, is filled with incredible connections and fantastic foreshadowing. Once you pick up this book, you will need the key of being able to dissect the book in order to unlock its full potential. Through the three-and-a-half year-long journey that is To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee takes Jeremy Atticus Finch and Jean Louise Finch through a never-ending pile of events. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is about Jem and Scout Finch and their childhood in Maycomb, Alabama. Their lives consist of a never-ending-chain-of-events, many interesting and unique people, and life’s lessons that give Jem, Scout, and Atticus a fresh view of the world. Not many people have actually seen and experienced Tom Robinson and Arthur “Boo” Radley, and this leads to incorrect thoughts about each character. Tom and Boo have a lot of good in them. They are both like Mockingbirds because they are both innocent humans harmed by the evil of mankind. In Harper Lee’s novel, both Boo Radley and Tom Robinson are innocent characters, but Boo’s kindness is hidden by rumors and Tom’s generosity is hidden by stereotypes.
Harper Lee’s only book, To Kill a Mockingbird, is the stereotypical tale of childhood and innocence, yet it successfully incorporates mature themes, like the racism in the South at the time, to create a masterpiece of a work that has enraptured people’s minds and hearts for generations. According to esteemed novelist Wally Lamb, “It was the first time in my life that a book had sort of captured me. That was exciting; I didn’t realize that literature could do that” (111). Scout’s witty narration and brash actions make her the kind of heroine you can’t help but root for, and the events that take place in Maycomb County are small-scale versions of the dilemmas that face our world today. Mockingbird is a fantastically written novel that belongs on the shelves for classic literature that everyone should take the time to read and appreciate for their execution of style and the importance of their content.
“You never really understood a person until you consider things from his point of view—until you climb into his skin and walk around it.” Atticus Finch is a man of extreme integrity. He, as both a lawyer and a human being, stands up for his democratic beliefs and encourages his children to stand up for their own, though they may stand alone. Harper Lee showed how far respect went in To Kill a Mockingbird when Atticus defended Tom Robinson in his rape trial. He did not think twice about being ridiculed by th...
To kill a mockingbird generates a unique sense of reading. Harper Lee’s style of writing brings a different and an unideal way of reading, the context in which to kill a mocking is written with the two narrators (Jean Louise and Scout) brings fourth many perceptions of the book. This unusual style of reading can become complex, struggling to telling which narrator at that point in the book is telling the story as each have different emotions, inputs and influences. As Scout is a very bright and intelligent person for her age is was tough at times to understand who the telling the story at that time, scout or the older version of scout Jean Louise for her language was far beyond her age.
Mood helps in creating an atmosphere in a literary work by means of setting, theme, diction and tone. Throughout the book To kill a mockingbird the author wanted the mood to be sorrowful or vexed or just fret about how the people are acting because seeing how things were being treated or how people acted would be enough to make you feel angry or sad or worried for the people who were in the book. You always wanted to know what was going to come next or how something would end. Vex was a very prominent mood in this story and is definitely the most relevant.
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!
Nelle Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird has been considered one of the classic works of American literature. To Kill A Mockingbird is the work ever published by Nelle Harper Lee, and it brought her great fame. However, Nelle Harper Lee has published several other articles in popular magazines. Nelle Harper Lee is not an individual who desires to be in the light and little is known about her personal life. At the time it is believed she is possible working on her memoirs. The fictional work of To Kill A Mockingbird plots many elements close to real events in America’s struggle over civil rights.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee seems like a complete replica of the lives of people living in a small Southern U.S. town. The themes expressed in this novel are as relevant today as when this novel was written, and also the most significant literary devices used by Lee. The novel brings forward many important themes, such as the importance of education, recognition of inner courage, and the misfortunes of prejudice. This novel was written in the 1930s. This was the period of the “Great Depression” when it was very common to see people without jobs, homes and food. In those days, the rivalry between the whites and the blacks deepened even more due to the competition for the few available jobs. A very famous court case at that time was the Scottsboro trials. These trials were based on the accusation against nine black men for raping two white women. These trials began on March 25, 1931. The Scottsboro trials were very similar to Tom Robinson’s trial. The similarities include the time factor and also the fact that in both cases, white women accused black men.
Scout learned a number of things in the book, but most of them all refer back to a statement that Atticus and Calpurnia said, which goes, “It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird because all they do is sing their hearts our for us.” (Lee, pg. 90). Scout learned that about people, too. She learned that some people don’t do anything to you, so it would be a sin to do something mean in return. Over the course of the story Scout becomes more mature and learns the most important facts of life. She was living through a very difficult time and most of that helped her get through.
Atticus is shown as a courageous man because he stood up for his beliefs even though it could possibly ruin his reputation. Defending
The book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee contain a very engaging family who are the Cunninghams. The Cunninghams are very poor; they are people who live in the woods. They are a family who depend highly on crops. Walter Cunningham, the 'father' of the family has to work hard on the cultivation of crops because crops is the only form of wages for them. The Cunninghams have no money. Their only way to survive is through paying others with their crops. The Cunninghams are not main characters in the book, but they are 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.
In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, there are many themes that are portrayed in the novel. Some of these themes include courage, social inequality, and more. Harper Lee develops the theme of a loss of innocence in To Kill a Mockingbird through Jem Finch and Boo Radley in many different ways.
In Harper Lee’s To kill a Mockingbird, the understanding of certain instances and scenes throughout the novel are essential in understanding the deeper meaning behind Scouts words. While reading To Kill a Mockingbird for the second time, I was able to establish a deeper understanding of the novel through specific scenes, that as a freshman reading the novel, were merely filler scenes. After reading the novel again, I realized that these scenes are crucial in not only character development, but foreshadowing and deeply woven symbolism.
"To Kill a Mockingbird." Sparknotes LLC. 2003. Barnes & Noble Learning Network. 2 Nov. 2003 .
Scout Finch is not the stereotypical girl from the 1930’s. Agents the wishes of everyone around her, she grows up in overalls instead of dresses. Scout plays in the dirt and sand, instead of in the kitchen. In the novel To Kill a Mocking Bird, by Harper Lee, Scout is the wild spirited narrator, growing up in the small town of Maycomb. As she gets older, she learns mostly from her father Atticus how to interact with people. Scout learns to show dignity and respect to everyone, under any circumstances.