“To Kill a Mockingbird Essay” “To Kill a Mockingbird” is a historical fiction on racial issues in the United States during the times of slavery. This novel was written by an American lady by the name of Harper Lee. She was born in Monroeville, Alabama on April 28, 1926. Lee was the youngest of four children. Her book, “To Kill a Mockingbird”, won the Pulitzer Prize. President George W. Bush presented Harper Lee with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in November of 2007. She was popular nationwide. She passed away on February 19, 2016 in Monroeville, Alabama. This was the town she had grown up and spent her childhood in. Wealth in the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” is not that important. Not a lot of people in this small town in Alabama. It is mostly a difference between the slaves and middle class. Wealth was not the main issue, it was racial inequality. It was obvious that Atticus Finch was really the only person that stood for anybody that was not white. There was definitely favoritism. Most people in the town were not extremely rich. Atticus Finch was a lawyer and only had a Chevy. It did not specify but it sounded like just an ordinary car. …show more content…
There were only a handful of people that wanted to see Tom Robinson go innocent. The odds were all against him. In the book, Tom Robinson confirms that he went to jail for disorderly conduct. “You were given thirty days once for disorderly conduct, Robinson?” asked Mr. Gilmer. “Yes suh,” Tom Robinson replied. (Harper Lee, page 262) It all flows better in the
Tom Robinson, a mockingbird, was convicted for a crime he didn’t commit. Even a part of the jury supported Tom, and fought for him till the end. The verdict of the jury angered many Maycomb folk, but nothing could be done about it. However the decision of the jury did favor many people, like Mr. Ewell.
Harper Lee is a famous author who wrote the award winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird. She grew up in the heart of Alabama and tied in many aspects of her southern childhood into the novel. There are historical and biological influences in the book To Kill a Mockingbird that reflect Lee’s life and the society around her during the 1930s.
To Kill a Mockingbird, a classic novel by Harper Lee, is a quintessential example of a novel that brings to light the social injustice that occurred throughout history. This social injustice is not only experienced by people of color, but also people that aren’t perceived as high class in society. Some people that face social injustice in To Kill a Mockingbird are the following: Tom Robinson, the Cunninghams, and Arthur Radley.
Harper Lee is well known for her great contributions towards modern society through her astounding book, To Kill a Mockingbird. The novel is read world-wide, in high schools and colleges because of its in-depth look at the social classes in the south during the 1930's. The book was influenced by society, in particular the social order of the south during her childhood. Lee grew up during this time of controversy which is why she writes so passionately about the topic. Lee wrote the novel to make a point about race while basing much of the plot off a trial from her young age, her own father, and the society she grew up in.
'To Kill a Mockingbird' is a novel that was written in the 1960s, but Harper Lee decided to set the novel in the Depression era of the 1930s in a small town in Alabama. Lee provided her readers with a historical background for the affairs of that time and in doing so she exposed the deeply entrenched history of the civil rights in South America. Like the main characters in this novel, Lee grew up in Alabama; this made it easier for her to relate to the characters in the novel as she would have understood what they would have experienced during the period when racism, discrimination and inequality was on the increase within the American society.
Harper Lee is best known for writing the Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller To Kill a Mockingbird. The novel takes place during the depression in Alabama with the main character, Scout, viewing her lawyer father, Atticus, defending a wrongly accused black man of rape. The reader gets to understand Scout’s childhood view of this controversial situation. Scout’s character in to Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is really the author’s own life playing out in the novel, which is most likely why this novel is thought to be one of the best American Novels of the 20th century.
At the age of 89, on February 19, 2016, Harper Lee passed away. President Obama and the First Lady said in a statement that Lee "changed America for the better. When Harper Lee sat down to write To Kill a Mockingbird, she wasn’t seeking awards or fame. She was a country girl who just wanted to tell an honest story about life as she saw it," their statement said. “But what that one story did, more powerfully than one hundred speeches possibly could, was change the way we saw each other, and then the way we saw ourselves,” the statement added. “Through the uncorrupted eyes of a child, she showed us the beautiful complexity of our common humanity, and the importance of striving for justice in our own lives, our communities, and our country.” “Ms. Lee changed America for the better,” the President and First Lady said. “And there is no higher tribute we can offer her than to keep telling this timeless American story – to our students, to our neighbors, and to our children – and to constantly try, in our own lives, to finally see each other.” (Shapiro,
To KIll a Mockingbird, a novel written by Harper Lee, is set in a small fictional town of Maycomb Alabama in the 1930’s. The story emphasizes the horrors of prejudiced and its impact on a small southern community. In this novel, Harper Lee introduces the reader to many themes, one of them being that courage is doing what’s right even when the odds of succeeding are poor.
A writer, who’s famous for an award winning book that created a reaction throughout the nation. Harper Lee is famous for writing the book ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’, which is now renowned for being a classic of modern American literature. Lee had grown up in Alabama to Frances Finch and Amasa Lee, along with her siblings Edwin, Alice, and Louise. As Lee grew up, she had been introduced at a young age to racial injustice through her father, who as a Southern lawyer, would have to either defend or oppose African Americans in different cases. Due to this, she tried to make social and political statements throughout her book, such as how whites were prejudice and bias towards African Americans and how anyone who either defends or likes a black is hated. Harper Lee tried to build connections between her childhood and her novel, while also connecting important events that were connected to The Civil Rights Movement.
To Kill a Mockingbird Essay To be a mockingbird means to be selfless, caring, kind and to keep your morals in all situations. Tom, Atticus and Arthur Radley from the Book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, are mockingbird characters and show it all throughout the book. Atticus Finch, many times over he proves to be unlike the rest of the Maycomb community. When he defends a black man in trial, although there is a large stigma around being a “negro lover”, he also refuses to use his gun skills in front of his children, reason being he wants to set the example that courage is not a man with a gun but someone with stamina to do what’s right. So he tells Jem, “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.
After the trial, Tom was wrongfully convicted and sent to prison. After an attempted escape, he was shot seventeen times. When the county heard about this, they were not angered that the guards had shot him excessively. They just blamed Tom, saying it was all part of his nature: “Just shows you, that Robinson boy was legally married, they say he kept himself clean, went to church and all that, but when it comes down to the line the veneer’s mighty thin. N***** always comes out in ‘em” (Lee 275).
To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, that offers a view of life through a young girl’s eyes. The novel is focused on two main themes which are racism and discrimination.
In the novel, Atticus said, “They shot him” (315). At this point in the book, Tom Robinson had just been shot during his exercise period at the prison. Tom should not have been in prison in the first place because he was innocent as proven in the novel. This is an example of abuse of law and force power that was based upon race and skin color. Although Tom was running, if he would have been a white man, he most likely would not have been shot.
Why is life sometimes unfair? No matter what you are, who you are, and what you ought to do, people would still be judging you. According to Harper Lee, the author of the book, it was mentioned there that “we know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe. Some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they’re born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cupcakes than others; some are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men (Lee, 1959).” It was even clearly shown in the book how some people are born white and others are born black, some people are born rich and others have nothing, some are born intelligent and others are clueless.
The text type of To Kill a Mockingbird is a fiction novel which deals with the racism the author observed as a child in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. To Kill a Mockingbird was written by Harper Lee, who wrote her novel in a retrospective point of view. There were numerous aspects of historical, personal, cultural and social context in To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee was born on the 28th of April, 1926, in Monroeville Alabama. Monroeville was a close-knit community that has many similarities with Maycomb, which is the setting of To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee’s father was a prominent lawyer, whom she drew inspiration for the protagonists father, Atticus Finch. Among Lee’s childhood friends was Truman Capote, from whom she drew inspiration to the character Dill. These personal details help portray Harper Lee’s own childhood home, where racism and segregation was highly evident. Another example of context which helped shape To Kill a Mockingbird were the events that occurred during Harper Lee’s childhood. In 1931, when Harper Lee was five years old, nine African-American men were accused of raping two white women near Scottsboro, Alabama. After a series of lengthy, highly publicised, and often bitter trials, five of the nine men were sentenced to long term imprisonment. Many prominent lawyers and various members of the general public saw the sentences as spurious and believed that it was motivated by racial prejudice.