Free Maycomb Society Essays and Papers

The novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, takes place during the 1930's in Maycomb County, Alabama. Atticus Finch, a white southern lawyer, is appointed to defend Tom Robinson, an innocent black man accused of raping a white woman. Throughout the story Atticus' children learn the meaning of true courage. Although Atticus proves Tom's innocence, the prejudice white jury's verdict is that Tom is guilty. The assumed black characteristics of immorality, dishonesty, shiftlessness and personal squalor

prejudice in Maycomb. Harper Lee uses Tom Robinson's 'crime' to bring tensions in the town to a head and the author uses the trial as a way of making the ideas behind such tensions explicit for the reader. The two people involved in the so-called crime, Tom Robinson and Mayella Ewell, are at the very bottom of Maycomb society. Tom is black and Mayella one of the poorest of the poor whites. However, neither of them fits into the stereotypes held by the people of Maycomb. Tom is honest

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. The Cunninghams are very poor people, but very honest as well. The Cunninghams have no money at all, as Scout was describing

been reasons for insurmountable conflict. Maycomb County serves as an important backdrop to central issues that plagued early 20th-century southern America: sexism, racism, and social class conflict. Prior to the feminist movement of the 1960s, women had to follow strict gender roles. Scout is a prime example of a female child struggling to fit these roles placed upon her not only by males in society but also by women. The moment Aunt Alexandra enters Maycomb, she takes it upon herself to mold young

people of Maycomb County are "infected" with racism (Jones 54). When Tom Robinson is brought to trial, convicted, and ultimately murdered for a crime he did not commit, no one in the town seems to show any compassion or regret for him other than Atticus. Atticus describes the people of Maycomb as "mad dogs that he must confront" by defending Tom (Lee 103). To prove the symbol further, Atticus is the person called upon to shoot and kill Tim Johnson. This action by the people of Maycomb, show their

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! Another example of total racial segregation is the

their guilty or innocent, you can ceaselessly and effortlessly convict the animals for their color vice.  You can even turn a blind eye to the obvious truth.  And so did the "people", the white, narrow-minded, bigoted and  hypocritical people of Maycomb. The justification for why Atticus broke from the norm, and acted unlike most others in his community, can be compared to the motive of the central character in the novel, A Time To Kill, written by John Grisham.   The comparative character, a lawyer

Miss Maudie & Aunt Alex The Maycomb ladies provide an excellent example of racial prejudice, and a failure to see what it is like in someone else’s skin. They believe they are doing well by making money for missions, failing to see the hardship on their own doorsteps. Aunt Alexandra is very important to the novel, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ as she is a representative of these viewpoints, disapproving of Calpurnia and disassociating herself from the black community entirely. Miss Maudie however is

Malevolent Phantom (To Kill a Mockingbird) “Vision is the act of seeing things invisible” (Jonathan Swift). In every society there is an underlying darkness that is alienation. Those who fall victim to alienation become the invisible and voiceless members of society. In Society there are few that see alienation. There are even fewer that know it is morally wrong and try to illuminate it. Alienation often goes unseen, but it is always there. The struggle to eliminate it will forever continue.

traditional beliefs. To Kill A Mockingbird allows its readers to question and consider those beliefs. Maycomb represents a typical old southern town. Not many people move into Maycomb and not many people who live there journey beyond its boundaries. As a result, the opinions held by many of the citizens of Maycomb are left to grow and foster in the same families for many generations. The circumstances in Maycomb are less than ideal for generating change and more prone to sustaining traditionally accepted