To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, was published in 1960 and is read by ninth graders all across the country because of its Pulitzer-Prize-winning writing. To Kill a Mockingbird parallels Harper Lee’s life in the sense that like the main character, her father was a lawyer and she had a best friend similar to the one of her main characters. She used this real life experience to tell the fictional story of Scout, a young girl living in the prejudiced community of Maycomb, Alabama. Scout and her brother, Jem, encounter a young boy, Dill, and quickly befriend him. They become interested in the suspicious story of Boo Radley and his family. However, the story’s plot is centered around her father, Atticus, and his case to defend Tom …show more content…
On Scout’s first day of school, she quickly starts off on the wrong foot with her teacher, Miss Caroline, who scolds her for her bad reading habits. Meanwhile, Scout is annoyed that Miss Caroline, having recently moved there, has not picked up on Maycomb’s ways yet because she tried to give a Cunningham a quarter and every Maycomb citizen knows that even though they are dirt poor, the Cunningham’s do not take anything from anyone. Scout arrives home from school and announces that she does not want to attend school ever again because of the day’s events. Atticus informs Scout that, “‘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’” (39). Atticus told her that by doing so, she will get along better with other people, including Miss Caroline. Atticus continues to explain that if Scout had put herself in Miss Caroline’s shoes, Scout would understand that Miss Caroline had simply not known any better than to give a Cunningham money, and she was only insisting that Scout not read at home so that she would not practice her bad reading habits and allow her teachers to correct them. As a result, Atticus taught Scout an important lesson that bettered her as a person because it would allow her to interact with others more easily and with fewer disagreements. Scout demonstrates her newfound ability to understand people later in the book when
In Harper Lee`s astounding novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch is the glue that holds the County of Maycomb together. Atticus Finch is a lawyer, widower, father and the pure definition of a fair, patient, and courageous human being, who is willing to step out into the dark, unfair world of racism, discrimination, and prejudice, to lend a hand to any victim in need. No matter what race, gender, culture, or religion you have been blessed with, you can count on the Atticus Finch of Maycomb County to be there. Atticus was revealed by his own words, what the people in this story say about him, and his actions. He is shown as the spark of justice, the sign of patience, and the ray of courage in this blind world that is flooded by the
“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)
The main characters of both, Reginald Rose’s play 12 Angry Men and Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, stand up for what is right even in the face of opposition. 12 Angry Men focuses on a jury 's deliberations concerning a homicide trial of which the accused, a sixteen-year-old boy, will be sentenced to death if found guilty. To Kill A mockingbird, on the other hand, is narrated by a six-year-old girl named Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch who lives in the southern American town of Maycomb. The plot primarily revolves around her father, the attorney Atticus Finch, striving to prove the innocence of a black man unjustly accused of rape, to a town steeped in prejudice. Throughout both narratives, the main characters, Juror Eight in Rose’s play and Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s novel, display similar characteristics and stand up for what they believe is right. They share many character traits and emphasise justice. Although they are both are confronted by disapproval, they manage to resist external influences with grace, though their methods may diverge at times. Ultimately both defend the accused of their respective trials, even though it is an unpopular and degraded position in the eyes of their fellows.
"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.
In the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, by harper lee, the setting is based on a little town, Maycomb, as scout grows up she sees the changes in her society, role of women, and courage. Scout learns more about the world as she grows up and she starts to see the discrimination between the blacks and the whites. Scout hears a lot about Boo Radley but never sees him. She knows how her society is bad from the day Tom Robinson’s trial and from all the rumours that were made of Boo Radley.
Being an 9 year girl in the year of 1930 and being said that your father is a “Nigger lover” How would that make you feel? In Harper Lee’s Novel,To Kill a Mockingbird, Two young children from Maycomb county in the late 1930’s experience trail which in involves their father defending an African American in an injustice court.Throughout theses events the children interact with society.Society shows these universal themes.Harper Lee’s Novel explores the 3 most important themes to kill a MockingBird: Evils of racism, females roles and growing up-pain or pleasures.
[7:17:28 PM] David | Meaty: Throughout history and especially in the 1900’s, the southern areas of the United States have possessed a prejudiced hate against various groups. Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in a small town called Maycomb and is based in the heart of discrimination. Racism is a key aspect of the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, because the entire storyline revolves around it. Racism is revealed in this novel through the continuous use of the word “Nigger” that is used in a discriminatory way against the coloured people of Maycomb. Also Racism is revealed in the Tom Robinson trial in which Atticus chose to defend Tom because there was no reason he shouldn’t, other than for inequitable reasons. Gender
All children go through changes and instances in their life that push them towards the brink of adulthood, especially those living in Maycomb County. The novel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, elaborates on the lives of the main characters, Jem and Scout Finch, and how they experience profound ordeals that try to open their eyes to the real world around them. In the first part of the book, Jem and Scout are introduced to the reader as representations of innocence. When people are born, they are filled to the brim with innocence, but as they get older, the world withdraws that innocence out of them. Harper Lee illustrates this theory from the start of the story using the lives of the children. Scout maintains a bit of her childhood innocence even after everything she and her brother have to bear, whereas Jem has his eviscerated by each vexing incident. Jem endures critical moments in his life that commence his transition from a child to an adult.
In “To Kill A Mockingbird” Atticus Finch, Tom Robinson, and Boo Radley symbolize the “mockingbirds” in the book. All three of them are nice, kind, and judgemental free people.
In towns with small populations, remaining conversant with the unspoken laws of the community is not difficult as the knowledge of who is socially acceptable to talk to and who is thought of as more of an outsider than a neighbor is not hard information to come across. Harper Lee highlighted this in her novel To Kill A Mockingbird by telling the story of life in Maycomb County, Alabama, through the eyes of Jean Louise Finch, whom everyone called Scout. While Scout, her father Atticus, and her older brother Jem were considered to be at the top of Maycomb’s social caste due to their light complexion, respectable family history, and Atticus’ career as a lawyer, other families were not so lucky. As Jem stated, "There 's the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, there 's the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the Negroes." (Harper 259). Though the Cunningham’s were white, which would normally mean superiority in this small town, their inability to make as much money as others as well as their isolated home placed them lower on the social scale than other middle and upper class citizens, such as the Finches and Miss Maudie. At first, Young Scout fully believed the scale’s interpretation of the Cunningham’s when the youngest, Walter, got her in trouble. Attempting to explain why Walter didn’t have a lunch and refused to borrow money from the teacher did not work out, and Scout blamed this on Walter and his poor family
“Mockingbirds don’t do any harm but make music for us … that’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird”, is a famous quote from the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Atticus, the father of the main character Scout, says this to her and her brother Jem when they receive rifles for Christmas. This book is considered a classic due to the allegory between the book title and the trial that occurs about halfway through the book. In the beginning of To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout is six. She is an innocent girl who doesn’t attend school and doesn’t question much. When she starts school her entire world begins to change and continues to throughout the rest of the book. When Scout is seven, a trial occurs in her town of Maycomb county over a negro named Tom Robinson and flips her entire world upside down. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses a primary theme that one will lose their innocence as they grow up due to the people and events that occur around them, which can be seen through the characterization and contrast between the characters of Scout, Jem and Boo Radley.
Did you ever think you knew something about a person only to find that you could not be more wrong? Making unverified assumptions like this is part of human nature for everyone. Because of this, some people do not want to reveal their true selves to others and prefer to remain unknown. Often, some people will hide out in their house and not show themselves to the world because of how others would react. Other people do not want to learn the truth and prefer to believe what they think is right evidence not with what is actually real. The people of Maycomb County are no different than people in the larger world. The characters in To Kill A Mockingbird work hard to maintain appearances that differ from reality.
To Kill a Mockingbird revolves around the time period of the 1930’s in the Southern part of the United States. The protagonist of this story is Scout, a tomboy, who narrates the story from her perspective when she is older. (She was part of this story herself from ages 6-9). The first many chapters of the book is about Scout’s life in school, and how she grows up in her neighborhood streets. She spends her days with her father, Atticus Finch. The main topic and climax of this book is about the court case of African American man, Tom Robinson, who had been accused of raping and beating a poor white girl, Mayella Ewell. Atticus Finch was a lawyer who defended Robinson and was also his alibi.
Some lessons can 't be taught, simply lessons have to learned. The exceptional novel of a small town in the south, To Kill A MockingBird, written by Harper Lee goes into the lives of children in the early 1900’s. Love and hate, curiosity, innocence and experience can relate to the lives of three children; siblings, Jeremy Atticus Finch, (Jem) and Jean Louise Finch (Scout), and their summer friend Charles Baker Harris or for short, Dill. With the children 's mother passing as young children their father, a well known neighbor and lawyer in Maycomb County, Atticus Finch fathers the children as they grow up. The town 's old legend of the Radley 's House, the home of the Radley Family, with town rumors that what lives
Harper Lee was born in 1926 in a small town in Alabama. She was the youngest of four children and grew up a tomboy. Her father was a lawyer and participated in state legislature, while her mother suffered from a mental illness and rarely left the house. In her twenties, Lee moved to New York City to pursue her career of becoming a writer. She made some friends who offered to let her live with them for a year so she could focus solely on her writing. During this time, she was introduced to a publisher and wrote her award winning To Kill a Mockingbird which is the book that precedes Go Set a Watchman. Even though To Kill a Mockingbird was published first, she wrote Go Set a Watchman first. The editor told Lee to make the main character younger. After working it for a couple years, To Kill a Mockingbird was published.