...How does Harper Lee present the theme of Prejudice in the novel? ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’? In the novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Harper Lee presents the theme of prejudice in a number of different ways. She shows that prejudice is present throughout all levels of society in Maycomb. She directs her attention to groups and individuals. ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ was set in the mid 1930’s and although slavery was abolished by the North in 1865 throughout America, the South still treated blacks as inferior, as the slaves they once were and the residents of Maycomb County typify this. The main theme of prejudice in this book is that of racial prejudice. The whole trial of Tom Robinson is full of prejudice against him. Before the trial even commences Reverend Sykes invites the children to sit in the coloured balcony – (Pg 181). Even the black and white public must sit separately! Extreme racial prejudice is shown to us by Harper Lee when she tells us of the colour segregation. In Maycomb there is segregation between black and white people. This is emphasised by the way blacks file in last and are seated in the balcony. Their politeness to the children is shown when four black people give up their front row seats for them. This shows white children also have authority over black adults. It is ironic that the children will have the same viewpoint as the black people attending the trial – in terms of where they see it from. At the time black people could not show their disapproval...
Words: 1791 - Pages: 8
...Imagine being back in the Great Depression and being accused of something that did not happen and being found guilty. This is what happened to Tom Robinson in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. In the novel, Harper Lee used real life stories as a guide to help her write her novel correctly and accurately. The novel is tied to a few stories such as, Jim Crow laws, mob mentality, and the issues of racism in that time period. One of the first connections to America’s history of racism in To Kill a Mockingbird is the Jim Crow laws. To begin, Jim Crow was a racist system that promoted inequality between the races. A bountiful number of people believed the laws were necessary to keep black people in their place. In addition, they used the Jim Crow...
Words: 1177 - Pages: 5
...To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee used different historical references and connections about the inequality between blacks and whites, and some of the struggles faced by both races. Included, are connections to the Jim Crow laws, mob mentality, and issues of racism during that era. In To Kill A Mockingbird, one of the first connections was the Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow laws created inequality between the two races of whites and blacks. There were reasons why people thought the laws were needed. They thought that whites were superior to blacks...
Words: 1371 - Pages: 6
...Mockingbird by Harper Lee used real-life events as inspiration for her novel. There are similarities to Jim Crow, mob mentality, and the issues of racism in that time period. In To Kill a Mockingbird the first connection to America’s history is the presence of the Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow laws were a way to segregate blacks from whites. Some examples of the laws were segregated buses, prisons, mental hospitals, and reform schools. If...
Words: 821 - Pages: 4
...description of the time period the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee took place. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is a book about a young girl growing up in a small town in Alabama. Throughout the book, there are many historical references including the Jim Crow laws, mob mentality, and the Scottsboro trials. One of the very first historical references in To Kill A Mockingbird is the Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow laws were a set of laws that were made to separate Blacks and Whites (Pilgrim). They separated colored people from white people and made a mindset among people that white people were better than Blacks (Pilgrim)....
Words: 923 - Pages: 4
... | | |Toolooa State High School | | | | | |Tom Lavender, English Essay | | |“Despite the efforts of governments, groups and individuals, humankind still finds it difficult to trust based on the soul of a person; | |we are more comfortable making judgements based on skin colour.” | Prejudice, courage and unity… TEXT COMPARISON Are we always champions of tolerance, courage and receptiveness to others? By the very definition of humanity, we must be. Humanity: benevolence, understanding and kindness towards other people. It is, arguably, our very human nature to feel compassion, courage, understanding, unity and empathy towards our fellow man. Unfortunately, prejudice and judgement also cling to the human condition like tumorous stains – traits which society still finds hard to surmount. Despite the efforts of governments, groups and individuals, humankind still finds it difficult to trust based on the soul of a person; we are more comfortable making judgements based on skin colour. Nelle Harper Lee through her 1960 novel, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ and Boaz Yakin through his 2000 film, ‘Remember the Titans,’ are text composers who tackle the ill-defined...
Words: 3544 - Pages: 15
...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...
Words: 4484 - Pages: 18
...Thomas jefferson once said all men are created equal within the harper Lee novel, to killing Mocking bird, the people focused to the not fair social equality in maycomb alabama with the narrator scout finch through the comparison character interactions in the novel and the influence of current events , it seems that the concept of social equality has changed since the 1930s when searching about social equality in the 1930s from the blacks and whites not being treated right ,the audience experienced just how much unequally occurs in the novel. in chapter 10, Miss lula asked calpurnia i wants to know why you bringin white chillun in a nigger church. for miss lula to come up to the kids and calpurnia , and say that scout and jem...
Words: 958 - Pages: 4
...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...
Words: 2841 - Pages: 12
...without empathy” (Frans de Wall). In Harper Lee’s book, To Kill a Mockingbird, the main theme is empathy, and it is exemplified through the different character’s actions and thoughts. Harper Lee believes that many of the characters express this trait which include Atticus, Jem, and Scout. This is clearly shown by the events that take place in the book. Atticus is the character that introduces the theme of empathy to Scout and Jem. He has a very famous line of dialogue that exemplifies empathy, ”You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (39). Another event that shows empathy is when Atticus takes the case for Tom Robinson, because he knows that it is not right to condemn an innocent man on the sole intent of racism (99). The statement Atticus makes and the defense of Tom robinson shows the empathy he has toward other people and how he teaches that to his children. Jem is another character that has begun to show empathy throughout the book whilst growing up. During the trial Jem is seen crying and muttering that the verdict of the jury is not right toward Tom...
Words: 517 - Pages: 3
...In addition to bearing the title of the novel, Harper Lee uses “To Kill a Mockingbird” as an opportunity to convey the significance of moral veracity to depict the alleged Mockingbirds of May comb county. She uses the innocence of children such as Jem and Scout to experience the underlying reality of good and evil in society, as their father, Atticus Finch attempts to teach them the morals of killing shadowed innocent beings who are helpless to their own freedom. After the encounter with Atticus and being told that to kill a mocking is a sin, Scout asks Miss Maudie who explains that,” Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy . . . but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” In the novel, Mockingbirds symbolize harmless innocent people who have only ever tried to serve others but are destroyed by the evil around them. To terrorize a Mockingbirds security is deemed to be morally detestable, as it would be considered a “sin.” The concept of Mockingbird relate to those discriminated for complex past history and wellbeing, race and mixed orientation. Boo Radley, Tom Robinson and mixed children represent the innocent creatures that are deemed to be the harmless and helpless Mockingbirds of Maycomb County. Boo Radley is clarified as a greatly misunderstood troubled victim of society with an intricate past history involving an abusive parental figure devoted to his own selfish pride, resulting in locking his son away from society...
Words: 1206 - Pages: 5
...the case for either the present or the past. Harper Lee’s book To Kill a Mocking Bird argues against in-court racism set back in the 1930s, which is still found today. Lee’s usage of Scout as narrator helps readers see the social injustice of racism happening inside Maycomb. In the book, Scout was a very naive child and often asked a lot of questions about what took place around her. When Cecil Jacobs told Scout her father defended Negroes (in a negative connotation), Scout was confused why that was bad. She asks Atticus, “Do all...
Words: 861 - Pages: 4
... 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 Tom, which one would...
Words: 1526 - Pages: 7
...works share similar attributes in their primary conflicts, how the characters approach and solve them differ. To begin with, in both Harper Lee and Earnest Gaines present similar conflicts and resolutions about racism and prejudice. First of all, Jefferson and Tom Robinson were convicted of a crime they didn't commit because of racial discrimination. For example, after the long awaited day, Judge Taylor came to a verdict, "Guilty... guilty... guilty......
Words: 843 - Pages: 4
...Mockingbird, Harper Lee discusses the effects of discrimination and the toll it takes on people. Through examples of sexism, prejudice, and racism, from the townsfolk of a small town in Alabama, she shows the readers the injustice of many. The victims of discrimination serve as the ‘mockingbirds’ of the story, as said by Atticus,“Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” (Lee, 94). In essence, this story demonstrates the loss of innocence of many, especially Scout who is affected by sexism and racism most of all. By far, one of the most evident forms of discrimination present in To Kill a Mockingbird is racism. It impacts the actions of every single character in the book and formulates...
Words: 1020 - Pages: 5
