...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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...Hatred and Racism in the 1930s The power of racism can affect one's behaviours and actions with one another. In To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, a man named Tom Robinson is convicted of raping a 19-year-old girl that is part of the Ewells family. As a black man in the 1930s, it was hard not to be guilty of a crime against white people like the Ewells. Siding with Tom Robinson as a white man is also looked down upon. This can be proven by the reaction of a lady named Mrs. Dubose when she hears one of the main characters named Atticus was defending a man when she said: “your father’s no better than the N-words…” (To Kill A Mockingbird, 102) The quote shows Mrs. Dubose’s hatred and discrimination to black people. The quote also shows how defending a black man is hated by the people. Mrs. Dubose’s act gives...
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...Andrew Holloman ENG 1101 11/13/12 Compare and Contrast Essay Similarities between Harper Lee’s Childhood Life and Scout Finch’s Childhood Life The To Kill a Mockingbird novel written by Harper Lee is commonly considered one of the twentieth century's most widely read American novels. The vast majority of people that have read the novel are of the belief that the events contained within the novel are based on Harper Lee’s childhood experiences growing up in the South. However, absent of Harper Lee actually confirming the inspirational source for her novel; it’s still an assumption made by the masses. Nonetheless, we all have to agree that there are some very distinct similarities between Harper Lee’s childhood life and the childhood life of Scout Finch’s in the novel. Similarities that exist between Harper Lee’s childhood life and that of Scout Finch in the To Kill a Mockingbird novel were the facts that they were both raised in small rural towns, both of them were tomboys during their childhood years, and they both lived through times of racial prejudice. The first similarity between Harper Lee’s childhood life and Scout Finch’s childhood life is that they were both raised in small rural towns in Alabama. Harper Lee grew up in the small rural town of Monroeville, Alabama that. The town has a small closely knit population where everyone knew their neighbors and knew their neighbor’s business. Aside from this the town of Monroeville is riddled with poverty and racial...
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...In To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee shows how the theme of ignorance and be connected to many different topics relating to the original theme. Ignorance can be tied with many other topics throughout the entirety of the book. Such as guilt or knowledge. Those are two many that could be discussed. Closely linked to the theme of prejudice, are issues of guilt and innocence, for the same ignorance that creates racist beliefs underlies assumptions of guilt. The most obvious instance is the case of Tom Robinson: the jury’s willingness to believe what Atticus calls “the evil assumption… that all negroes are basically immoral beings” leads them to convict an innocent man. Boo Radley, unknown by a community who has not seen or heard from him in 15 years, is similarly presumed to be a monster by the court of public opinion. Scout underscores this point this point when she tells her Uncle Jack he has been unfair in assigning all the blame to her after her fight with cousin Francis. If he had stopped to lean both sides of the situation, he might have judged her differently, in which he eventually does. The novel’s conclusion also reinforces the theme of guilt and innocence, as Atticus reads Scout a book about a boy falsely...
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...I’d like to analyze the extract from a book which is entitled “To kill a mockingbird”. The author is Harper Lee, an American author known for her 1960-Pulitzer-Prize-winning and who is considered now by many to be a literary icon. Harper Lee was born in 1926 in the state of Alabama. In 1945-1949 she studied law at the University of Alabama. Her novel ‘To kill a mockingbird’ which deals with the issues of racism that were observed by the author as a child in her hometown was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. The book became an international bestseller and was adapted into screen in 1962. The story of “To kill a mockingbird” takes place during a tumultuous time in the South. At that time black people were treated as people of lower level than white people and racial tensions were running high in the South as a whole, especially in Alabama. People all over the US followed events like the Scottsboro incident, 1955 bus boycott and also Martin Luther King’s rise to leadership. Harper Lee is said to have been influenced by these events very much. Though many details of To Kill a Mockingbird are apparently autobiographical she has insisted that the novel is a work of fiction. The text under analysis belongs to the group of fictional texts. The literary trend is realism. The book is brilliant and powerful and it is renowned for its warmth and humor, despite dealing with the serious issues of rape and racial inequality. The story takes place during three years of the Great Depression in...
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...Why is it that society is self centered? People always accumulate themselves as the right individual during conflict. They never consume the information being presented in front of them. This is also the main reason why racism is highly prevalent within society. The novel, ¨To Kill a Mockingbird,¨ that was well written by the author, ¨Harper Lee,¨ accurately demonstrated how people easily lose their sense of empathy and become very prejudice. Within Tkam, empathy is greatly influence through the characters Atticus, Scout, and Dolphus Raymond by including the primary issue of racism and how it affected them within their home town, Maycomb County. First and foremost, In the novel, ¨To Kill a Mockingbird,¨ empathy is first presented by the character,...
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...The text under consideration is taken from the book “To Kill a Mockingbird” written by Harper Lee, an American author. The text belongs to the fiction. The peculiarity of this very extract is the inclination of oratory speech which is the feature of publicistic style. It is difficult to speak about genre, because we deal with only an extract from the book, but we know that it is novel. It is difficult to understand the function of the title from only an extract. But in my opinion the author wanted to stress on that fact that in the story they pretend to have equal court system, but it’s not equal. And the author tries to “kill a mockingbird” that means to show this unequalness. The text shows us a vivid picture of a court, the arid atmosphere of a trial on an example of one case. The theme of the story is relationship between people within the society. I believe that author’s message is to show us a good example of conformism, when the majority do the same things. The other message is that prejudice wins people’s common sense so they can even discriminate against innocent person. The events of the extract take place in the court of Maycomb County. Two small children secretly came to the trial and were sitting there the whole trial. A Negro, Tom Robison by name, was falsely accused in rapping a white woman. But Atticus, a defender and the two children’s father, was absolutely sure in his innocence and tried to give all necessary facts to persuade the jury. Actually it was...
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...“White people wouldn’t Have anything to do with her because she lived among pigs.” [“DBQ:Is Mayella Ewell powerful?” 21] Mayella Ewell experiences people judging how she lives and the obstacles she faces in life. In To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee she faces class, gender, and race problems. When figuring out if Mayella is powerful, one must take into consideration her social class and how it affects her standing in Maycomb's social structure. Class is defined by a person's level of income and education which often boils down to how much money one is able to earn. Mayella uses her class to have power by making Tom Robinson feel sorry for her in which he gets in trouble doing so, Mr. Gilmer took it as he felt he was above her. Skin...
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...Many famous works of classic literature often convey themes that anybody can understand and relate to. Prejudice, for example, is a famous theme found in stories that often reflect real historical events, such as the Scopes Trial of 1925 in Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s Inherit the Wind. Others, like Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, are not solely based on a specific trial, but do reflect similar events and trials that happened during the time period. The trials force the characters to confront the overwhelming prejudice of their respective towns. However, while both works experience and overcome prejudice, To Kill a Mockingbird condemns victims through racism, taking place in a time where it was not uncommon, whereas Inherit the Wind...
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...Recently I read the novel To kill a mockingbird, which raises the well known issue of racism. This issue has so many opinions and viewpoints focussed around it, considerably negative. My hypothesis was ‘is racism any better on global scale than it was in American history? I broke this into three key questions; what is racism like in American society today?, What was racism like in American history? And have people globally learnt a lesson from the events that took place during history? Has racism improved globally? What is racism like in American’s society today? Roydon Agent, who wrote a study of black civil rights in the USA, says “clearly life is better for African-Americans today than it was in the past. Many black Americans are living the the ‘American Dream’. Many have worked hard and found success, particularly in entertainment, sport and music”. I think that this book is a reliable source because it is an educational textbook for history students making it a secondary resource, I found this didn't have much bias in it due to it being a factual textbook, without much opinion. While furthering my research for this question, I found the source published by OHRC written by Amanda Nguyen, called Racism in North America, then and now. This source states “Police have been thought to be shooting black men for unlawful reasons such as Trayvon; Trayvon caused outrage throughout America as he was shot and killed because of an assumption that he was dangerous, only because...
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...Task 2: Critical Analysis Ngien Sing Jier For this semester, we are analysing a novel entitled ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ written by Harper Lee. I find this novel very meaningful and interesting to read as well. After reading and analysing the novel a few times along with the teachings of my lecturer, I can differentiate the story told from different perspectives, parts when Scout was young and parts when she was an adult. It is about the life and happenings in Maycomb County. The story is told in the first person point of view whereby Scout as the narrator, is a character in the story who tells us everything she has experienced. She can reveal only personal thoughts and feelings and what she sees and is told by other characters. Harper Lee wrote this novel based on her real life experience during childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it. “Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ takes readers to the roots of human behavior namely innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humour and pathos.” Theme is the main idea or underlying meaning of a literary work. A theme may be stated or implied. Theme differs from the subject or topic of a literary work in that it involves an opinion or statement about the topic but not every literary work has a theme. Themes may be major or minor. A major theme is an idea the author returns to time and again, becomes one of the most important ideas in the story...
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...Scout is a strong willing character, who puts her fist up to anyone who says anything critiquing her and her family. She wears overalls all day and wouldn’t be caught dead in a dress. Scout is a important character because she tells the story through a pure selfless child’s eye and shows realism through her actions and words. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Scout represents innocence as she experiences prejudice while searching for equality. Scout portrays innocence in the novel because she narrates the world through a child’s eyes while opening the novel with a naive viewpoint about her surroundings. In the beginning of the book Scout illustrates a raiding on the jail, through an adolescent’s viewpoint....
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...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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...Al Sharpton once said “As I often say, we have come a long way from the days of slavery, but in 2014, discrimination and inequality still saturate our society in modern ways. Though racism may be less blatant now in many cases, its existence is undeniable” While Sharpton claims we have come a long way in regard to prejudice of blacks, in the 1930s many blacks and whites who opposed the segregation of blacks felt the hatred produced by white 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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...introduction to Shakespearean drama; teenagers can relate to its plot, characters, and themes. The play’s action is easily understood, the character’s motives are clear, and many of the themes are as current today as they were in Shakespeare’s time. Therefore, it can be read on a variety of levels, allowing all students to enjoy it. Less able readers can experience the swash-buckling action and investigate the themes of parent-child conflict, sexuality, friendship, and suicide. Because of the play’s accessibility to teenagers, able readers can view the play from a more literary perspective, examining the themes of hostility ad its effect on the innocent, the use of deception and its consequences, and the effects of faulty decision making. They can study how the characters function within the drama and how Shakespeare uses language to develop plot, characters, and themes. The most able students can develop skills involved in literary criticism by delving into the play’s comic and tragic elements and its classically tragic themes: the role of fate and fortune, the inevitable nature of tragedy, and the isolation of the tragic hero. This teacher’s guide will be divided into several parts: (1) a brief literary overview, including a synopsis and commentary on the play; (2) suggestions for teaching the play, including activities, discussion questions, and essay topics to be used before, during, and...
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