Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

“Human beings are poor examiners, subject to superstition, bias, prejudice, and a profound tendency to see what they want to see rather than what is really there” ~ Scott Peck. Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird abounds with the injustice produced by social, gender, and racial prejudice. The setting of the book takes place in the 1930s, where racism is a big deal in society. In the novel Harper Lee uses a mockingbird as an analogy to the characters. The Mockingbird is a symbol for Three Characters in the book, Atticus Finch, Tom Robinson, and Boo Radley. The people of Maycomb only know Boo Radley and Tom Robinson by what others say about them. These Characters are then characterized by other people 's viewpoints. In the novel there are many themes that are adjacent to our lives, the one that is found in To Kill A Mockingbird is Human Conflict comes from the inability for one to understand another. “ You never understand a person until you consider things from his point of view- until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” (39)

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee has been banned and/or challenged over thirty times since its publication in 1960. Effectively preventing many students from enjoying the novel and benefitting from its message. To ignore racism is no different than denying it ever existed. To Kill a Mockingbird is appropriate for mature adolescence/students and should not be banned from schools. Despite its sexual related content, or profanity, a valuable lesson remains that should be taught to students.

“Everybody sees what you appear to be ... few people know who you really are.” This saying illustrates that if you appear one way, no one can see who you really are inside. When someone appears one way, you do not really get to know them but when they truly become themselves you can really see who they are and not just who they appear to be. However, they may only reveal their true selves to some people and keep acting like a different person to everyone else, or keep everything to themselves and do not show anyone their true self. Dolphus Raymond, Boo Radley and Atticus Finch in the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, all show themselves in a different way. Dolphus reveals himself to Scout and Dill during the trial at the court.

We live in a society where African Americans used to be treated with no respect. What if you had to experience the same things that they dealt with? They faced racial discrimination and injustice in court. Mostly in the Jim Crow South, certain groups of white people during this time made it impossible for African Americans to receive justice. Even if they were innocent, blacks could be brutally punished and were subjugated by violence. In court whites would generally win even if they did not have any strong evidence to support their arguments. Especially in the south, during the 1930s, African Americans had little value and basically no legal status in society. They were meant to be treated like animals and, generally, many people believed that whites were always superior to blacks.

In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee creates an amazing story, but there is one thing that is controversial in the book: Did Atticus do the right thing by taking on Tom’s case? In the book, Tom Robinson, who was a black man, was wrongly accused by Bob Ewell for raping Ewell’s daughter, and Atticus, a lawyer, decides to take on the case in a Maycomb, which was a very racist town. Bob Ewell, who is mad when Atticus makes a fool of him, goes after, and hurts, Atticus’s kids. So, the question is, did Atticus do the right thing by taking on the case, and by doing so, put his kids in danger? Most likely, the answer is yes, even though he put his kids in harm 's way, he still did the right thing, since his kids only came out of the experience with mild injuries, but a lot of knowledge and experience about how to live in the racist town of Maycomb.

In order to be your best possible self, you have to put yourself in someone else 's shoes. Atticus emphasizes that you have to untie your own shoes before putting yourself in someone else 's throughout his parenting in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Atticus strongly encourages Scout to explore the mentality of compassion, sympathy, and tolerance, by crawling into other 's shoes and trying to grasp what they go through in their everyday lives. When Scout puts herself in else 's shoes, she comes to the conclusion that the world is full of people who are willing to live their lives in hiding, just to be happy, and to hide from people’s harsh judgement.

People often fear what they don 't understand. Evolutionary psychology can be traced back millions of years, when fear was avoided because of its repercussion of death. An aversion to the unknown was usually safer. Therefore, evolution culled for human traits that feared and avoided the unknown. Fear of the unknown shows how people become narrow-minded and ignorant to their surroundings, and how people behave when they believe something will happen even though they are solely intolerant. This ideology directly correlates to Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a MockingBird. Throughout the story, the townspeople attempt to overcome their various fears by turning against each other. In Maycomb, fear enforces racism and causes the townspeople to

“‘...Mockingbirds… don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us [anyone and everyone in Maycomb]. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird…’” (Lee 119). In the Pulitzer Prize winning novel of 1961 To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee tells the story of a young girl by the name of Jean Louise (Scout) Finch and her older brother Jeremy Atticus (Jem) Finch, and what their lives were like growing up in Maycomb, Alabama during 1933-35. Scout and her brother Jem are both children of the morally passionate lawyer, Atticus Finch, and both are exposed to the same experiences that shape their sense of right and wrong. Yet Scout and Jem come to dramatically different conclusions about good and evil and the essential nature of humankind.

Taking place about twenty years after To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman is an extension of sorts of the award-winning novel. Harper Lee writes about Scout, who goes by Jean Louise in Watchman, when she is in her twenties, and is in a relationship with her brother 's childhood friend Henry, who

‘“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”’(Lee 33). Said by Atticus Finch, this is perhaps the most important line from the book because it makes Scout Finch become who she becomes. Throughout the plot of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Scout Finch’s views and understanding of the society that surrounds her changes very drastically. Her understanding of the good and evil in society evolves the most, due to the teachings of Atticus Finch. In the beginning of the book, Scout Finch was what every child once was; innocent and simple. As the book progressed, she became aware that life was a complex and confusing world, and she struggled to

“There’s nothing more sickening to me than a low-grade white man who’ll take advantage of a Negro’s ignorance” (Lee 296). In the book To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses many different conflicts to prove the point that overcoming obstacles is tough to do alone. The narrator of this book is Scout Finch, who takes us through her childhood in a city called Maycomb in Alabama in the 1930s. Maycomb is like every other city in the south, most people being racist. Scout and her brother, Jem, are the children of Atticus Finch, who tries to teach them many lessons about growing up and about life. Atticus is the lawyer for a black man named Tom Robinson in a trial where he is being trialed for raping a white woman named Mayella Ewell. It is a detriment that Tom is black because there is a lot of racism. Mayella’s family is a dirty and disrespectful family in that town. In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses conflict to show that overcoming obstacles cannot be done by a single person.

Not only have the adult characters in the book To Kill A Mockingbird set a solid ground of good morals and beliefs for the children in the book but also young readers decades later. Children are often influenced by adults in their life whether it has been a positive or negative moral aspect. Children often receive advice and encouragement from their guardians or adult figures. In author; Harper Lee 's novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, readers observe three parents who have influenced their children heavily, in this essay readers will look further into Atticus Finch, Mr. Radley and Bob Ewell.

"Never make someone else suffer for the mistakes which you make. Be responsible and account for what you do." The Ewell family does exactly this to Tom Robinson, blaming him for a crime he does not commit, and getting away with it. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, is a story about the lives of people in the county of Maycomb in the 1930 's. Lee uses mockingbirds to symbolize innocence and purity, she explains that mockingbirds should not be killed, unlike other birds, because they do not cause destruction, they only sing for others ' enjoyment. Tom Robinson is an African-American man who gets accused of raping Mayella Ewell, by her and her father, Bob Ewell, who is a drunk. In court, the jury rules Tom guilty, only based on the fact that he is black, and the Ewells are white, however, Tom is, in fact, innocent and has done nothing wrong. Tom Robinson best represents the mockingbird in the text, because he symbolizes innocence by only wanting to help people, with no bad intentions.

This novel is all about her life as a child, the father, Atticus is a lawyer in Alabama who is defending an African American who is accused of rapping a white woman. The first statement says “In July 2015, Lee published her second novel, Go Set a Watchman, which was written before To Kill a Mockingbird…”(Lee 2). It uses the novel written before Harper’s best novel was released. The next statement says “The book, as Lee seems to have planned it, would follow Radney through all the legal maneuvering that kept Maxwell out of jail and flush with over a hundred thousand dollars in insurance payments”(Cep 10). This statement explains that Harper Lee’s book gave her a different point of view looking at people and things.

Harper Lee is the author of Go set A Watchman. Harper was born on April 28, 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama. She is best known for her book To Kill A Mockingbird. Harper Lee was the youngest of four siblings and grew up as a tomboy. Her father was a lawyer and also owned part of the local newspaper. Harper lee’s mother suffered from mental illness and she barely left the house.