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Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird Essay

Decent Essays

To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee is novel set in a three year period through the ‘great depression’. Atticus Finch (Jem and scouts father) is originally portrayed as a friendly and understanding person, though when he attends court defending a ‘black man’ as his job, suddenly he and his family begin to suffer racial hatred from their community. The story features on the themes of racism, community morals and the realisation of certain truths whilst growing up. It is a fascinating novel with a great storyline full of drama and unexposed realities. Racism was quite a predominant topic throughout the novel also relating in with symbolism. Their small commune consisted of both ‘white’ and ‘black’ people each with their own …show more content…

This is quite sad to think that defending an innocent ‘black’ man can be marked as a symbol of disrespect to the ‘white’ people of their community, Even though Tom is innocent, the fact that he is ‘black’ supposedly imposes the fact that he is guilty of what he did. The community is described as a slow paced town, with not much to see or do. “There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb county”. It seems as though this small town has a way of living of its own and there doesn’t seem to be much enforcement on things except for the division between the ‘negro’s’ and ‘white’ people. This setting description gives an example of some of the morals present in their community, some of them quite bleak. The Radley place is quite renowned throughout the whole town with many stories and suspicions about the place. The community described it as “inhabited by unknown entry”, “rain-rotten shingles’, “a ‘swept’ yard that was never swept” and with such scary beliefs about the place, it was enough to make children behave for days on ends”. At one stage Jem went as far to say “if Dill wants to get himself killed, all he had to do was go up and knock on the front door”. The entire community has it thoughts about the place and every one knows its boundaries but it seems that every generation that has grown up

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