...Racism, Poverty, and Violence in To Kill a Mockingbird Maycomb, like other Southern towns, suffers considerably during the Great Depression. Poverty reaches from the privileged families, like the Finches, to the Negroes and “white trash” Ewells, who live on the outskirts of town. Racism violently attacks the people of Maycomb and causes many conflicts throughout the novel which causes violence amongst the citizens. Harper Lee uses the characters involved in To Kill a Mockingbird as symbols of the main themes of the story, which includes, poverty, racism, and violence and these recurring themes influence the actions of the characters in numerous ways. Poverty is repeatedly referenced throughout the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Many citizens...
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...Society’s Impact On Growth And Understanding In her novel To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee demonstrates how society shapes our understandings of others, but that this can be mitigated by strong role models. Scout Finch is strongly impacted by the “old traditions of the south” during her growth into womanhood and when she pushes against the stereotypes placed on her as a southerner and a young lady to find her gender identity. The beliefs of Atticus Finch and his involvement in the courtroom have had a big impact on Scout’s growth. Atticus’ beliefs were different than the beliefs of most people of Maycomb and he “bestowed a benevolent order on the Finch household by his example” which slowly shifted Scout’s views on their society’s division....
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...The Help and To Kill a Mockingbird both have many similarities in how prejudice and empathy were displayed throughout the story. Both of the stories were set in the time of segregation in the Southern United States. It also shows the similarity of African-Americans as caretakers or housekeepers – Calpurnia in To Kill a Mockingbird and Aibileen is only one of the examples in The Help. The settings were also similar, a part of a town was where whites lived and part of a town was where African-Americans lived, but there was a twenty-year difference of when the books took place. Prejudice was mainly shown throughout the storied by the way whites treated the African-Americans. In The Help, there were multiple examples of prejudice: African-Americans were not allowed to us the same bathroom as whites and how African-Americans could not use the same plates as whites. The acts of prejudice often stemmed from the fact that whites believed that African-Americans contained diseases, a statement that was supported by no facts. In To Kill a Mockingbird, the main example of prejudice was when Tom Robinson was convicted of raping a white girl when...
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...So done With This SHit During the 1930s, also know as the Great Depression, poverty and racial segregation are issues. Many cities in the South, in the 1930s, are reluctant to give up old beliefs of prejudice. Harper Lee shows prejudice in her book To Kill a Mockingbird set during the Great Depression. To Kill a Mockingbird follows the narrator, Scout, who is a girl learning about how the South works. Scout learns that prejudice is very present in her everyday life. Lee uses the actions of others to illuminate the issues of prejudice against the Cunninghams, Atticus Finch, and Dolphus Raymond. Prejudice is evident in the book through how people treat the Cunninghams. During the novel the Cunninghams are told to be a poor family who are considered “trash” by the townspeople. Those who believe...
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...walk around in it.’ (3: 85-87) To Kill a Mockingbird (TKAMB) written by Harper Lee focuses on the inequality of race throughout America in the early 1900’s. The building roman novel published in 1960 utilises literacy techniques including symbolism, first person and characterisation in order to explore key themes such as innocence, social inequality and gender stereotyping. The novel promotes an insightful, entertaining and morally educating perspective for all readers. Literacy techniques are a critical part of the storytelling. Symbolism is used in order to enhance the story; it expresses a deeper meaning towards...
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...Mockingbird‘s Faded Childhood Innocence Irish poet William Butler Yeats once said, “The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.” There is no truer an example in literature than in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. In the novel the author uses the perspective of the novel’s storyteller, Miss Jean Louise Finch, more commonly known as Scout, and her brother Jeremy, nicknamed Jem, to highlight the blind innocence that comes as a byproduct of childhood. It is this innocence that also disappears from the children’s perspective in the novel. At least at first the two, blinded by their innocence, are unaware of the more mature and even sometimes ominous events and actions that eventually occur in the novel’s unveiling plot. It is because of their unwearied characters that Lee is able to best show how the events that occur in the lives of young characters causes blind innocence to disappear over time. Throughout the novel, there is a constant turn of events that ultimately leaves the children disillusioned with all their preconceived notions of all that is morally just and good. As Yeats said, time indeed proves to be the enemy for the children’s innocence, and by the novel’s end their worldly perspective is irreversibly changed. In the opening of the novel, Jean Louise Finch is revealed to be a grown woman looking back on her youth. The focal point of the narrative in particular is an innocent period from her childhood when she is six years old, just...
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...of those around them. According to Atticus Finch, main character in To Kill A Mockingbird, courage is “when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what”. This type of courage makes infrequent occurrences in social media and news outlets, yet is one of the most inspiring. In Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, author Harper Lee displays three characters, Atticus Finch, Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose , and Mr. Walter Cunningham, that exemplify the definition of courage in the face of unfair, seemingly unchangeable situations. Atticus Finch, a defense lawyer, fought through an extremely difficult case with dignity, while facing racial prejudice in the justice system. On page 100, Atticus states, “I’m simply defending a...
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...Contrary to what many people think, courage does not mean that you live without fear. It does not mean that fear is absent from your life. Courage is your ability to face the fear. It is the bravery inside of you that helps you conquer the fear. In the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, many examples of courage are shown, such as emotional, moral, and physical courage. Extra information about courage. Transition sentence. In chapter 2 of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Scout shows an example of emotional courage. When Miss Caroline is confused as to why Walter Cunningham will not accept her money, Scout makes a courageous move by standing up and explaining to Miss Caroline that he is a Cunningham. “‘The Cunninghams never took anything...
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...In essence, empathy is defined as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” During the course of the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, the recurring lesson of empathy is learned through the experiences of characters, good and bad alike. Most specifically, Jean Louise (“Scout”) Finch embarks on a journey throughout the story in which she gains the ability to do just this. Living in the 1930’s town of Maycomb, she witnesses the harsh racism towards those of color, and experiences other strict societal norms that the time period entails, such as gender roles, which she doesn’t seem to abide by. As a risk-taking child, growing up under the influence of her older brother Jem, the two children attempt a fairly...
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...The American Dream, the archetypal notion that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative, is an ideal that most people strive to achieve. Unfortunately, in the past and in modern day, the population that surrounds us has been propelled by conceptions such as racism and gender roles which avert us from obtaining our visions. Classic works of literature including To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, and A Raisin in the Sun accurately display a lack of equality and fair treatment in the sharing of wealth and opportunities by incorporating racism and gender roles into the lives if the characters in the novels. The authors of To Kill a Mockingbird,...
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...Ignorance in To Kill a Mockingbird Merriam-Webster defines ignorance as a lack of knowledge, education, or awareness. It can cause people to reject others because they are different in some way. Because the majority of the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee are poorly educated, many of them refuse to accept people because of their race, class, or gender. The ignorance within the novel contributes to the development of the conflicts throughout the book. The racial ignorance within the novel is a factor in the progression of the conflicts. It causes Tom Robinson, a young black man, to be treated unfairly during his trial. Even though there was enough evidence to prove that Robinson was innocent, he was still convicted by...
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...TKAM Literary Analysis Inequality and prejudice plays what I believe is the most important role in the story To Kill a Mockingbird. Events such as Tom Robinsons trial emphasize this point. Also points such as the game Scout and Jem conjured up to be about Boo Radley’s life. Some points of the book where Aunt Alexandra talks about others as if they are less than them shows that she is basically the living embodiment of racial and social discrimination. These all show the strong tension between the people of Maycomb and those who they believe are different. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee emphasizes the theme of inequality and prejudice through metaphors, tone and characterization. My first piece of evidence to support the theme of prejudice in the town of Maycomb is when Aunt Alexandra was talking to scout about inviting Walter Cunningham (Jr.) over for dinner and Scout is complaining why Aunt Alexandra wont let her play with him and she says, “I’ll tell you why…Because—he—is—trash, that’s why you cant play with him.” This is an example of a metaphor used to describe that Walter is “Worse than them” essentially. This supports the theme of inequality by showing that Aunt Alexandra doesn’t want Scout playing with Walter because she believes they are in some sort of higher “social class”. For my second piece of evidence I have another quote from Aunt Alexandra. This time she is speaking with Atticus about getting rid of Calpurnia because she is black. The quote...
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...Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, mentions countless lessons that Scout learns while growing up. She learns these lessons from the adults in her life, which includes her African American caretaker, Calpurnia. Without an actual mother around to guide her, Calpurnia becomes the motherly figure in Scout’s life who guides her. The interactions between Calpurnia and Scout affects the way Scout goes about her daily life as a result of what she learns from Calpurnia, like writing, understanding black culture, and keeping an open mind in relation to other people. One of the most crucial lessons that Calpurnia taught Scout was how to write. In chapter two, Scout says, “She would set me a writing task by scrawling the alphabet firmly across the top of a tablet, then copying out a chapter of the Bible beneath” (Lee 18). In this quote, Scout explains how Calpurnia taught her how to write by having her copying chapters from the Bible and writing the alphabet. The fact that she can write, causes Scout to stand out because during her first week of school, her teacher took an immediate dislike to her since she could write. In addition to her teacher disliking her immediately,...
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...the book was released in 1960, many people were disturbed by the fact that someone would talk about it so freely in a favorable way towards black people and how racism works both ways. Not only white people would degrade color people by saying “a common, ugly term to label somebody” such as “nigger-lover” (Lee 107), just the same, colored people would deplore of white people being in their areas. “You ain't got no business bringin' white chillun here—they got their church, we got our'n. It is our church, ain't it, Miss Cal?"(Lee 135). Nevertheless, years later, the book still enlightens people about racial issues, for example the comedian Meera Syal commented on 2007 how "To Kill a Mockingbird was the first book that made me aware of racism, and aware of what was happening to me. It even...
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...In To Kill a Mockingbird, it reads “Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit'em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird”(Lee,119). In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch is called to defend Tom Robinson in a case he knows he can’t win. Although everyone believes the suspect definitely committed the crime Atticus knows that is not true. In the story, Atticus defends Mr. Robinson and believes that he is innocent. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee depicts Atticus Finch as an insightful character, a respectful character, and a moral character to reveal a model of a simple man. In my opinion, Harper Lee depicts Atticus Finch as an insightful character to reveal a model of a simple man. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus says “Courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what” (Lee,149). Through Atticus’s perspective, it is learned that he figured out what Mr. Dubose was doing....
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