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Social Injustice In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Social Injustice in Famous Literature

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee draws many parallels to real life, but one of the most relevant themes is social injustice. Social injustice has been society’s disease for as long as mankind has existed, from the cavemen, to the indigenous people of America, to today in modern society. Communities tend to turn a blind eye to the hateful words that are weapons in disguise, and literature is one of the only places where the raw and uncensored truth is revealed. Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird, “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail display a theme of social injustice which reveals that the world is not as equitable as many people think. The theme of social injustice in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird carries through to other literature, such as Maya Angelou’s poem “Caged Bird”. She eloquently writes that “a free bird leaps on the back of the wind, [...] but [a caged bird] stalks down his narrow cage [and] can seldom see through the bars of his rage [...] his wings are clipped and his feet are tied” (Angelou). Angelou’s poem indirectly describes the divide in every society, with the bars of the cage being a metaphor for the inevitable isolation that occurs between the types of people, and the ominous words like “rage” and “stalks” are disturbing compared with the joyful ease of the free bird. Her poem connects to Harper Lee's novel in a way that only literature can. A

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