Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

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.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee has many ongoing themes such as Walking in Someone Else 's Shoes, Social Classes, Scout 's Maturity, and Boo Radley. These themes contribute to the story in many ways.

Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is the story of two children coming of age and learning about their hometown and the whole world. The two children in the story are Jem and Scout Finch. Jem and Scout live with their father, Atticus, in Maycomb County. Throughout the story, many problems arise which teach both children about bravery. The three bravest characters in the novel include their neighbor Mrs. Dubose, a convicted black man named Tom Robinson, and their father Atticus.

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.

An award winning book and classic for modern American literature implies the remarkable novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Nelle Harper Lee. The narrator and main character of this book is Jean Louise, more commonly known as Scout Finch. This book is set in the slow-paced town of Maycomb where the community is small, but the struggles many. In this small town, social norms play a big role in everyday life. The social “laws” are found to be stronger and more enforced than the real law. Citizens of this southern community must stay in their class or endure suffering as an outcast. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird, specific circumstances in the 1930s South impacts the theme of Small Town Life. The study of eugenics and stereotypes impacts the identity of the citizens of Maycomb on a daily basis and affects the social norms for different people.

Racism has been a hot subject for many years. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, it is the central theme of the novel. When Atticus Finch is asked by Judge Taylor, to defend Tom Robinson, a black man, Atticus accepts and defends Tom to the full extent of the law. Atticus even makes the plaintiff, Mayella Ewell, question how the incident involving herself and Tom Robinson, actually happened. Nevertheless, when Atticus made the case proving that Tom Robinson did not commit the crime he was accused of, a jury of white men all ruled that he was guilty. Furthermore, what does this say about the jury, the defendant, the plaintiff, and the lawyers involved in the trial? Did the jury decide guilty because of the information provided by the lawyers or was it because of the color of Tom Robinson’s skin?

‘“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

“‘...Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (Lee 119). After having read most of the book, I now see that this is a significant and meaningful symbol in the novel. It represents innocence, like that of Tom Robinson 's. In Harper Lee’s book, To Kill a Mockingbird, which is based upon a true story, Tom Robinson, a man accused of rape, Scout Finch, a tomboy and lawyer’s daughter that observes occurrences in Maycomb, resists racist comments, and does not always understand things, who is also the narrator of the publication, both in a childish fashion and in an adult like fashion, and Atticus, a lawyer who is intelligent, respected and respecting, and defends Tom Robinson in his time

“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.

Prejudice is a negative opinion or feeling formed about someone without thought or reason, and before knowing anything about them. In To Kill a Mockingbird, the citizens of Maycomb are prejudice and cruel towards Tom Robinson and he is put on trial and convicted because he is a black man. Prejudice was also destructive to Jem, and witnessing it every day left him hurt and heartbroken. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the destructiveness of prejudice is harmful to Jem and Tom Robinson, therefore children and people of colour are the most affected by prejudice at the time the book took place in the 1930’s.

‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ written by Harper Lee, is a story of the racism, prejudice and inequality that

Throughout the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee conveys the concept of courage through differing individual’s perspectives. In the racially segregated community of Maycomb, the existence and genuine form of valour is misinterpreted by the citizens. Audacity is associated with physical strength and will; one’s engagements and victories. However, Harper Lee explores its disparate forms through opposing individuals, defining the presence of authentic courage. Readers are exposed to several forms of courage, from individuals who acquire diverse values and beliefs. Lee discovers intellectual courage through the maturation of youthful Jem Finch’s into an adult. In the life of a principled lawyer, Atticus Finch’s moral fortitude is vividly illustrated as he continues to defy all social conventions when defending Tom Robinson. Through the eyes of a morphine addict, Lee introduces emotional courage in Mrs. Dubose’s when suppressing her unprincipled habits. By imbedding the quality of “courage” in the lives’ of various characters, Lee effectively illustrates the numerous forms of the motif ‘courage’ and its genuine definition: intellectual, social and spiritual.

“Simply because we’re licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win” (Lee 101). One of the major lessons of Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird is to always do the right thing. The text is told through the narrator Jean Louise “Scout” Finch. She lives in the small, old town of Maycomb, Alabama with her brother, Jem Finch and her father, Atticus. Across the street from the Finch lives Arthur “Boo” Radley who is believed to be a horrible human. Rumor has it he eats squirrels and cats and is locked in the basement of his house for these actions when he was a teen. Throughout the novel, there is also a trial that has inundates the whole town. It is between Tom Robinson and the daughter of Bob Ewell. Mr. Ewell is a disgrace to the town. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses characterization to show that people should always do the right thing even when faced with big obstacles.

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.