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How Does Lee Show Diversity In To Kill A Mockingbird

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What if one of literature’s most celebrated novels wasn’t as good as one originally thought? Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird tells the story of Scout and Jem Finch, and their friend Dill Harris, three children living in a small town in the deep south during the Great Depression. One summer, Maycomb County is thrown into racial turmoil when Scout and Jem’s father, Atticus, is appointed to defend Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of raping Mayella Ewell, the white daughter of the town drunkard. Although the themes in To Kill a Mockingbird center around equality and justice, Lee sugarcoats many of the elements of racism and ultimately ends up championing the Caucasian race as opposed to delivering powerful messages about diversity. …show more content…

Unlike the traditional lynchings that took place in the deep south in the 20th century, the group that intends to attack Tom arrives in the dead of night without any of the usual fanfare or festivals. The cars in which the men rode came "slowly in a line...and stopped in front of the jail. Nobody got out" (171). In the passage above, Lee connotes a feeling of secrecy. On the contrary, lynchings were days of celebration, days where the entire family would take a picnic and wait for the victim to swing. Additionally, the group as a whole is described as being foreign, dirty, and drunk. Scout notes that "there was a smell of stale whiskey and pigpen about, and when I glanced around I discovered that these men were strangers" (172). Perhaps Lee portrayed these men as outsiders because she was unwilling to admit that such blatant hatred existed in Maycomb, a town very much like the one she herself grew up in. Lee's attempts to distance herself and Maycomb from racism are yet again evident when Atticus tells Jem that "we don't have mobs and that nonsense in Maycomb. I've never heard of a gang in Maycomb" (167). In many ways, Atticus is much like Lee herself, unwilling or unable to see the bad in his beloved

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