...To Kill a Mockingbird, by Nelle Haper Lee was published in 1960, after the 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education and during a time of increasing civil rights unrest (Johnson). It was also a time of great social change in the United States, and a novel about the racial injustices of 1930s Alabama carried a powerful message to its readers. After the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, literature and literacy were used to expose and educate on racial injustice (Prendergrast 2). The dominant theme of the novel is prejudice and ultimately the courage needed to overcome prejudice. There are three main types of prejudice that are explored in the novel; racial prejudice, social prejudice and fear of the unknown. Racial prejudice is present throughout the novel in the people of Maycomb’s everyday life, as it is a novel set in the ‘deep south’ of America in the 1930’s. This period is not so long after the American civil war, so slavery’s abolishment had occurred not all that long ago, and the horror of slavery was still on the mind of many black people at the time (Brundage 86). Because of this, most people’s attitudes towards black people had not changed very much. The situation that shows the best examples of racial prejudice is the trial of Tom Robinson. In his trial, Tom Robinson is misjudged and mistreated because he is black. One of the clearest examples of this is the way in which Mr. Gilmer, Tom’s prosecutor, calls Tom “boy.” He uses a tone of voice towards...
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...“To Kill a Mocking Bird”: Teaching Tolerance Through Empathy Mary Ellyn Fogarty December 8, 2012 America in the mid 1950’s and 1960’s was undergoing a profound social metamorphosis. Events such as, in 1954, the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, with the Supreme Court ruling public school segregation illegal, which many believe sparked the civil rights era, in 1956 Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus to a white man, “precipitating the Montgomery bus boycott, led by Martin Luther King Jr.” (To Kill a Mockingbird: Civil Rights Era, 2012), in 1957 federal troops were sent to Little rock Arkansas to protect nine African American students who were going white high school, per the court ordered desegregation of school, were challenging and for some forcing the way in which Americans lived, their beliefs and their treatment of African Americans that had been indoctrinated into their consciousness from the time they were born and many did not understand why this treatment was inappropriate, prejudice and unconstitutional. For some these changes were viewed as not an intrusion or criticism of their way of life but as...
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...In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, justice is demonstrated throughout Atticus’ actions. His strive for equality can be represented by the scales of justice. Atticus believes that everyone should be treated fairly regardless of race, socio-economic or familial background. Having such an honorable and just character, propels Atticus to defend the wronged individual, Tom Robinson. Atticus believes that Tom Robinson is innocent of the crime accused against him and he believes Robinson should not receive the death penalty. Atticus knows Tom might lose this case due to the racial attitudes and prejudices prevalent in the community. When an African-American is accused of a crime, the person is undoubtedly presumed guilty. Atticus still persists in...
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...THE GLENCOE LITERATURE LIBRARY Study Guide for To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee i Meet Harper Lee at the same university. In 1949, however, she withdrew and moved to New York City with the goal of becoming a writer. While working at other jobs, Lee submitted stories and essays to publishers. All were rejected. An agent, however, took an interest in one of her short stories and suggested she expand it into a novel. By 1957 she had finished a draft of To Kill a Mockingbird. A publisher to whom she sent the novel saw its potential but thought it needed reworking. With her editor, Lee spent two and a half more years revising the manuscript. By 1960 the novel was published. In a 1961 interview with Newsweek magazine, Lee commented: Writing is the hardest thing in the world, . . . but writing is the only thing that has made me completely happy. To Kill a Mockingbird was an immediate and widespread success. Within a year, the novel sold half a million copies and received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Within two years, it was turned into a highly acclaimed film. Readers admire the novel’s sensitive and probing treatment of race relations. But, equally, they enjoy its vivid account of childhood in a small rural town. Summing up the novel’s enduring impact in a 1974 review, R. A. Dave called To Kill a Mockingbird . . . a movingly human drama of the jostling worlds—of children and adults, of innocence and experience, of kindness and cruelty, of love and hatred, of humor...
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...“To Kill a Mockingbird” Analysis Harper Lee published “To Kill a Mockingbird “ in 1960, a time buzzing with racial segregation and irrational injustice. She based the book on various events that were all to real, only fifty years ago. Throughout the book, the author captures these horrendous inequalities and is able to explore these subjects through various situations and characters. However, it is not always just the color of one’s skin as to the reason of why they are treated differently. Lee is able to display examples of prejudice based on class and status of a person, rather than race alone, through the use of abstract symbols through the use of characters. Harper Lee use birds to symbolize traits in various characters throughout the book. Although it is not just mockingbirds used as the only bird example. When Jem and Scout receive guns to shoot for fun, Atticus warns them against shooting mockingbirds. However, he states that they may shoot all the blue jays they desire. Blue jays are the nuance bird; this connects to Bob Ewell due to the fact that he is the perfect display of a blue jay. The blue jays represent the prejudiced citizens of Maycomb; they are ever present and continue to taunt others. Atticus goes on to tell the kids that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird. The mockingbird is the innocent bird and therefore sums up Tom Robinson the most clearly. As being an innocent man that is only being tried due to his race, he embodies the mockingbird perfectly. Throughout...
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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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...To Kill A Mocking Bird BY HARPER LEE Novel Analysis I.BACKGROUND IN FORMATION ABOUT THE AUTHOR Nelle Harper Lee (born April 28, 1926) is an American author known for her 1960 Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which deals with the issues of racism that were observed by the author as a child in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. Despite being Lee's only published book, it led to Lee being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom of the United States for her contribution to literature in 2007.Lee has also been the recipient of numerous honorary degrees, but has always declined to make a speech. Other significant contributions of Lee include assisting her close friend, Truman Capote, in his research for the book In Cold Blood. II.INFORMATION ABOUT THE NOVEL Classification- To Kill a Mockingbird is embodied by Atticus Finch, who is virtually unique in the novel in that he has experienced and understood evil without losing his faith in the human capacity for goodness. Atticus understands that, rather than being simply creatures of good or creatures of evil, most people have both good and bad qualities. The important thing is to appreciate the good qualities and understand the bad qualities by treating others with sympathy and trying to see life from their perspective. He tries to teach this ultimate moral lesson to Jem and Scout to show them that it is possible to live with conscience without losing hope or becoming cynical. In this way, Atticus is...
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...the way people act and think. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, the small town of Maycomb faces the harsh circumstances of social inequality. Atticus Finch, a lawyer and leader of Maycomb, defends Tom Robinson, a black man wrongly accused of Rape. Social inequality will never change, though it can be a hardship it simply will not go away because minds aren’t easily swayed, the natural opinion that one is better than another, and the demand of one group to conform to the dominant group. To begin with, Civil discrimination starts in the mind; this mind does not have to be one of poor thoughts or strong thoughts, either can be tainted by prejudice. Atticus’s children, Jem and Scout, spoke to their Aunt Alexandra about their friend Walter Cunningham, Aunt Alexandra called him “trash”. Scout was confused about why she would call him...
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...southerners. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, it is obvious that there are many issues in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. In a time where segregation was more common than ever, many southerners began to form bias opinions towards African Americans. This unjust judgment of different...
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...Most people are not able to achieve justice, simply because they lack the audacity to. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, justice is a concept that is seldom sought after. The novel takes place in the town of Maycomb, Alabama, a prejudiced society where African Americans are oppressed by its white civilians. The novel is narrated by Scout Finch, a young girl who is deprived of her innocence as she comes into contact with the racial injustice in her town. Scout’s father, Atticus Finch, is a lawyer who opposes the bigoted views of Maycomb. Atticus values the equality of every human being, including African-Americans, a group that is heavily despised by the majority of Maycomb. Throughout the novel, Finch repeatedly demonstrates justice by sticking to his moral beliefs. For...
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...versus Ethics ......................................................................................................................... 5 Responsibility and Culpability ............................................................................................................. 6 Atonement .......................................................................................................................................... 9 Law and Legality .................................................................................................................................... 10 Race and Ethnicity................................................................................................................................. 11 To Kill a Mockingbird...
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...way out. You realize that you'll have to jump out a window. You eventually find one. You're hesitant, but you think that a two story fall shouldn't be too bad. Besides, you've got to get the baby and yourself out of this burning inferno. You take a running start and leap out of the window. When you land, the wind is knocked out of you. As you get up, a news van that came to film the fire decides they should get the story of the baby's rescue. You appear on the news and become a hero in your neighborhood. Then you wake up. You've been daydreaming. Dreaming that you were a great hero who accomplished an amazing feat; a Champion who has completed what most others would fear to have done. Most everyone longs for an opportunity to prove how courageous they are. They long to receive fame and glory for their...
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...Music Journal Table of Contents 1-4 1. Two Trains Running................................................................………...5 2. Almost Lost My Mind.............................................................................5 3. Do You Love Me....................................................................................6 4. One Fine Day ..............................................................................................6 5. Fingertips (Part 2)..........................................................................................7 6.Mona Lisa……………………...........................................................................7 7. Shop Around......................................................................................................8 8. Please Mr. Postman...........................................................................................8 9. Save the Last Dance for Me...............................................................................9 10. Hello Stranger.....................................................................................................9 11. I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Hunny Bunch)..............................................9,10 12. Stop! in the Name of Love..................................................................10 13. Love Don’t Love Nobody..................................................................................10,11 14. You Can't...
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...reassuring to know that many professionals undergo these same strange compulsions before they begin writing. Jean Kerr, author of Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, admits that she often finds herself in the kitchen reading soup-can labels—or anything—in order to prolong the moments before taking pen in hand. John C. Calhoun, vice president under Andrew Jackson, insisted he had to plow his fields before he could write, and Joseph Conrad, author of Lord Jim and other novels, is said to have cried on occasion from the sheer dread of sitting down to compose his stories. To spare you as much hand-wringing as possible, this chapter presents some practical suggestions on how to begin writing your short essay. Although all writers must find the methods that work best for them, you may find some of the following ideas helpful. But no matter how you actually begin putting words on paper, it is absolutely essential to maintain two basic ideas concerning your writing task. Before you write a single sentence, you should always remind yourself that 1. You have some valuable ideas to tell your reader, and 2. More than anything, you want to communicate those ideas to your reader. These reminders may seem obvious to you, but without a solid commitment to your own opinions as well as to your reader, your prose will be lifeless and boring. If you don’t care about your subject, you can’t very well expect anyone else to. Have confidence that your ideas are worthwhile and that your reader genuinely...
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...fourth EDItION fourth EDItION This clear, learner-friendly text helps today’s students bridge the gap between Its comprehensiveness allows instructors to tailor the material to their individual teaching styles, resulting in an exceptionally versatile text. Highlights of the Fourth Edition: Additional readings and essays in a new Appendix as well as in Chapters 7 and 8 nearly double the number of readings available for critical analysis and classroom discussion. An online chapter, available on the instructor portion of the book’s Web site, addresses critical reading, a vital skill for success in college and beyond. Visit www.mhhe.com/bassham4e for a wealth of additional student and instructor resources. Bassham I Irwin Nardone I Wallace New and updated exercises and examples throughout the text allow students to practice and apply what they learn. MD DALIM #1062017 12/13/09 CYAN MAG YELO BLK Chapter 12 features an expanded and reorganized discussion of evaluating Internet sources. Critical Thinking thinking, using real-world examples and a proven step-by-step approach. A student ' s Introduction A student's Introduction everyday culture and critical thinking. It covers all the basics of critical Critical Thinking Ba ssha m I Irwin I Nardone I Wall ace CRITICAL THINKING A STUDENT’S INTRODUCTION FOURTH EDITION Gregory Bassham William Irwin Henry Nardone James M. Wallace King’s College TM bas07437_fm_i-xvi.indd i 11/24/09 9:53:56 AM TM Published by McGraw-Hill...
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