Natalie Kiaei
Mr. Hahn
English 9
Period 4
28 November 2017
To Kill a Mockingbird Literary Analysis
(Tab)When living in a racially divided community, who and what someone is surrounded by can affect their personality and identity. Someone can not only have one identity, they can express themselves in many different ways. Whether that person is naturally strong but can often soften up or could also be strong and bring out a more masculine side, as shown in the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Calpurnia is Atticus, Scout and Jem’s housekeeper but she also takes in the role of a positive motherly influence in Scout's life. Worried that she won't be accepted for who she is, she presents her actions in different ways based on her position. Calpurnia tries to avoid experiences of judgment even from her own community in church, and rejection from the white citizens in her town, this influences her to alter herself to what she believes would please her surroundings. However, in the Finches home Calpurnia is not afraid to express herself. Since Atticus is free from the confinement of racial discrimination, he treats Calpurnia with respect and makes her feel welcomed and like family. But now even with the comfort from Atticus, Jem and Scout Calpurnia still feels the urge that she wouldn’t be accepted. In Maycomb County, the racial discrimination forces Calpurnia to adopt a dual identity depending on her environment.
(Tab)Calpurnia first presents one of her dual identities
To kill a mockingbird can mean many things. It’s the title of a book that has been bought 40 million times. But, it also has a definition. To kill a mockingbird means to destroy innocence. The theme of my literary analysis is mockingbirds. Mockingbirds in TKAM are innocent things tainted by the skewed society of Maycomb. Some of these mockingbirds are Boo Radley, Tom Robinson, and the children. To Kill a Mockingbird is a book set in a small Alabama town in the 1930’s. The main character and narrator is Jean Louise Finch, but is almost always called by her nickname, Scout. Scout, her brother, and her summer friend Dill get into all kinds of mischief while living in the racist society of a 1930’s Alabama town. Scout’s dad, Atticus, is a prominent lawyer in Maycomb and is appointed to a controversial case, and is defending a black man. Scout and her brother, Jem go through many troubles and learn many lessons from the days leading up to, and during the trial. The trail makes their family some friends and a lot of enemies. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a story of courage and despair. Throughout TKAM, mockingbirds are used as an example of something innocent being tainted by the skewed society of TKAM. Some great examples of these are Boo Radley, Tom Robinson, and the children.
“It takes a village to raise a child”, is an African Proverb. In other words, it can take more than just a child’s nuclear family to make her grow into who she will be as an adult. This lens is true because even though parents and siblings have a major effect on a child, and how they turn out later on in life, society and a child’s surrounding are what really shapes, and makes them who they are. What a child sees when he or she is new to the world, and doesn’t know everything, effects their behavior, and outlook on their life ahead. This lens is illustrated in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by
Yet Perry’s childhood bliss was taken from him, somehow creating his current disposition, the true purpose is the falling of unity from inside the people of Holcomb, therefore; pinning every person against another. A dark curtain that falls over the children, parents, farmhands, hunting regulars, and police officials. A curtain that keeps them apart from one another because they are lost in the infinite blackness that surrounds them, an evil they let seep into their minds and imaginations.
Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” is set in a small Southern United States community called Maycomb during the Great Depression era. The whole book primarily revolves around segregation and racism and how it relates to Maycomb’s history. It eventually leads to the trial of Tom Robinson where he is accused of beating up and raping Mayella Ewell. Even though it was clear that Tom Robinson did not do anything wrong he was convicted by an all white jury simply because he was black. The trial of Tom Robinson and its verdict shows an example of how segregation in the court system prevents fair trials from occurring.
Great authors use different literary elements to display their thoughts. To Kill a Mcokingbird, a novel written by Harper Lee, takes place in Maycomb, Alabama, during the years of the Great Depression. The novel focuses on Scout Finch, a 6 year old tomboy, and her brother Jem. They both begin realize all of the social issues, such as rape and inequality, that happens in their community throughout the course of the plot. Many people were racist against black people and judgemental against people who were not like them during this time period in the south but Scout and Jem’s father, Atticus, did not want his children to become influenced by these people. Harper Lee uses literary devices such as characterization, symbolism, and conflict to develop
On August 9, 2014,a young man by the name of Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer. It is little known why the shooting occurred, but the boy was unarmed.This could be one of many cases of modern day racism and segregation. In 1930, “even after the abolishment of slavery in 1865, blacks were still almost powerless(BBC 2)”.Blacks were heavily segregated and had almost no rights.Many cases of segregation in the 1930s caused a lot of current day racial tension in the united states.
“I guess tom was tired of white men’s chances and prefers to take his own”. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee It shows the racism between whites and colored people to show how it can affect our day to day lives. Through the character Tom Robinson Harper Lee shows the struggle that colored people go through in their lifetime.
By firelight Cherokee natives once gathered to tell a story of a fierce battle between two wolves ; one benign, the other malevolent. The myth tells that this conflict goes on within each person, and the wolf that a person feeds, wins this clash. The people of Maycomb experience this internal conflict, demonstrating both acts of bravery and bitter intolerance. As Tom Robinson’s trial inches slowly towards its inevitable inequitable conclusion, Scout and her brother Jem are exposed to the complexity of their town and its residents. The Finch siblings are made to question the morals on which they’ve been raised, as Bob Ewell spits words of hatred, Ms.Maudie bakes her cakes and the spectral Arthur Radley (Boo) watches over his children in the dark isolation of his own home. Through her themes of Discrimination, Integrity, and Courage in her work To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee highlights the coexistence of both benevolence and malevolence within human beings.
The concept of courage is more philosophical rather than something that is real. Its a fact that can’t be substantiated, courage is a non tangible feeling that lies within one's heart and psyche. It isn’t something that you're born with, it's something you work for as you grow older. When the day comes when you have to battle the inner demons that make your life discontented you’ll need to conquer in order to overcome it once and for all.After you overcome the thing that's pains you the most you’ll have the face of courage. The novel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, it revolves around the idea of courage but to the farthest extremity. The characters are more than just literary entities that inhabit the book, they are individuals
Famous philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “There are no facts, only interpretations.” Everyone’s opinions are different and unique, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are right or wrong. Everyone has a right to their own viewpoints and they should be acknowledged respectfully. This idea is addressed in a significant passage of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, when Jean Louise (Scout) Finch interacts with Arthur (Boo) Radley. In the novel, Scout is faced with multiple conflicts that require her to notice other perspectives and interpretations and learn from them rather than judging other’s decisions and actions based solely on her own views. Boo was once a frightening childhood superstition in the Maycomb neighborhood,
“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” (page 103) Harper Lee explains that it is a sin to kill someone, (mockingbird) when all they do is sing and/or never harmed anyone. Single story is shown in To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, with the characters Tom Robinson, Boo Radley, and Dolphus Raymond. Tom was accused of beating and raping Mayella Ewell. The town looks at Boo Radley as the “killer of the night” when they don’t know anything about him, and it’s just an excuse. They look at Dolphus Raymond as the town drunk when really it’s just a cover up for hating the white society, and would rather live among the coloreds. Throughout To Kill A Mockingbird, a single story runs
“I am not Abnegation. I am not Dauntless. I am Divergent” (Roth 442). This quotation display a certain substance we all need understand about ourselves in life; we are more than one thing, one personally, and one judgement, we are all divergent. Divergent is a powerful word in which means that we are all different than what the world may want you to be or how you are portrayed to the rest of the world. Divergent means, you are not just one human you are one different human being who has many aspects that make you the person you are. In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, judgement is evident when characters Arthur Radley, Atticus Finch, and Dolphus Raymond are misjudged for the way they community sees them, which is being
What: “To Kill a Mocking Bird” portrays a society that is supremely, staggeringly unfair. The story takes place in the U.S. South in the 1930s in a small town where racism is part of the very fabric of society. Faced with this situation, an equality minded person, is tempted to speak their mind, however keeping their head down until then. Some people in the novel do just that, but few decide to act on the side of justice and equality, even though they think it’s mostly hopeless. “To Kill a Mocking Bird” does not sugarcoat the results, however it does suggest that
The text To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960), may pose certain difficulties to students who speak languages or dialects other than the Standard Australian English (SAE), referring to students from a language background other than English (LBOTE) known as EAL/D learners (ACARA, 2014). These difficulties may be lexical semantics, vocabulary, language techniques such as metaphors and pronunciation, which are factors that need to be understood for students to make meaning with the text or the broader context (BOSTES, 2009). The text relates to a metaphoric “Mockingbird” (Lee, 1960), which is also a motif throughout the text. Without proper understanding of both logical and lexical semantics, students may experience difficulties relating
Critical Review of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird is set during the 1930's in a small, isolated