To Kill A Mockingbird And The Great Depression

The Great Depression was a devastating time where millions of Americans lost their jobs and their homes (McCabe 12). Not only did the Great Depression influence the writing of her novel, Harper Lee used other historical events to influence the creation of To Kill a Mockingbird. The Jim Crow laws, mob mentality, and the Scottsboro trials are some of the historical events that inspired To Kill a Mockingbird.

Maycomb was a small town like many others in the south following The Great Depression. Times were very troubling during this period. All Americans were suffering, but many believe that southerners had it the worst. The south had barely gotten back on its feet following the civil war. There were certainly still too many prejudices against African Americans. However, southern blacks were beginning to own their own farms and businesses. Things were looking up in the south during the roaring 20’s until the stock market crash of 1929. Following the depression, in the mid 1930s, Maycomb was a tired old town. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with. Not much to see here at all.

The famous novel To Kill A Mockingbird, written in the 1960s, is based off of historical events that happened 30 years prior, things like The Scottsboro Trial, The Harlem Renaissance and the Great Depression, just to name a few. As the novel is read, many themes of racism, injustice, and poverty appear. The Scottsboro Trial was a rape accusation, nine young black boys were accused of raping two white women aboard a train in Scottsboro, Alabama in 1931. The Harlem Renaissance was a period that is considered a golden age in African American culture. It spanned from the 1910s to the 1930s. The Great depression was around the same time that the Harlem Renaissance first came to be. The Great Depression was a time of great poverty for America because

In both Lee and Steinbeck’s novels, prejudice is a key theme portrayed in a variety of different forms and is used as a way to degrade and discriminate the innocent characters. Lee’s title quotation ‘mockingbird’ represents those who are victims of prejudice, which is a large amount of characters as the novel is set in 1930 America, where the only properly respected people were white, mentally stable males. This is also shown by Steinbeck who uses the hopelessness of the Great Depression to put across how people were affected in their views and lives during that time. Both novels create prejudice against black people, those with mental disabilities or health issues and women, ostracising these people was not uncommon in this period, probably because these people were misunderstood by others due to lack of communication. Both Lee and Steinbeck use these minorities to portray how far prejudice is to blame for the misery and pain which develop as the novels progress.

The Great Depression was an economic crash in the United States from 1929-1939. Contributing to the Great Depression was the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl was an area of the United States that suffered a severe drought in the 1930s. In the novel, To kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, the main character, Atticus has a job as a lawyer and can afford food and does not suffer as much as many others do from the Great Depression. The town is not suffering from the Dust Bowl as much as other parts of the country are.

     The Great Depression was a huge economic downfall in North America and involved many other industrialized countries of the world. The Depression began in 1929 and lasted for about ten years. Millions of people lost their jobs along with many businesses going bankrupt. The common misconception of the Great Depression is people think that the stock market crash was the main cause for it. There were many causes for the Depression; unequal distribution of money during the 1920’s was the main cause of the Depression. This unequal distribution happened on many different classes of people. The imbalance of money is what created such an unstable economy. The stock market was doing much worse than people thought

Born in 1897, William Faulkner was born into a traditional southern family in Mississippi. Throughout his career, Faulkner chronicled the effects of the Great Depression in the postbellum South with his short stories and novels. Following an era of excess and luxury, the Great Depression revolutionized the life of Americans living in the southern states. The economic turmoil brought on by the recession increased existing racial tensions and heightened the disparity between the upper and middle classes. Although it takes place approximately forty-five years prior, allusions to the Great Depression can be seen throughout William Faulkner’s short story “Barn Burning” in the racial and social clashes between Abner and the surrounding community, along with the lifestyle of the Snopes family.

To Kill a Mockingbird was directed by Robert Mulligan. This movie and book shows how hard life was back in the Depression and how hard it was to live. Everyone considered themselves poor because they were. You would try to do anything to make money but it was so difficult. Making 5 cents was so good back then but now that would get us nowhere.

“There is a principle which is a bar against all information … and which can not fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance – that principle is contempt prior to investigation" (Herbert Spencer). Humanity’s obstacles are principally derived from ignorance, exacerbated by the refusal to alleviate it. The ignorance of these obstacles, by extension, is our greatest downfall. Optimists will criticize pessimists for negating the positive, but they may fail to appreciate the negative, consequently failing to mitigate it until it plagues society uncontrollably. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird illustrates ignorance and resulting discrimination in the small southern county of Maycomb, Alabama. Set during the Great Depression, the novel is

Economic Class Differences During the Great Depression Farmers, townspeople, and African-Americans are all represented in the book To Kill a Mockingbird, which takes place during a time period known as the Great Depression, but perhaps this literary work is not the best representation of the time period. So far in the book, the readers have met Dill Harris, learned about the Finch family background, and learned the story of the Radley house. The main character, Scout Finch is an impulsive tomboy growing up during a difficult historical period. Scout’s father Atticus is a lawyer and a much-needed role model for Scout. Her brother Jem and friend Dill like to torment Boo Radley, the “malevolent phantom” (Lee, 8) living in the house down the street.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel written by Harper Lee. The novel is about the experiences of two siblings growing up in Maycomb, Alabama during the 1930s. Scout and her brother, Jem Finch, over several years, learn valuable lessons about life and society. The main themes of the story are the loss of cherubic innocence and the rift of inequality in society. The novel is largely influenced when it was written by the author’s own experiences, Civil Rights, and the Great Depression. The Great Depression is referenced many times in the novel since the Great Depression plays an important part influencing the story’s setting, plot, and characters. In To Kill a Mockingbird there are signs that the Great Depression is present and that certain characters are affected more by it than others, and the Great Depression is shown in the story’s families and their lives.

The Great Depression impacted the real world, but how does it influence “To Kill a Mockingbird?” The author, Harper Lee created an extraordinary story set in the economically gloomy era of the 1930s. The Great Depression damaged America, as the pinnacle of social inequality revealed. Lee incorporates varying issues in the novel. Lee portrays a fierce realism as she depicts the 1930s, using accurate allusions and plot elements of each concern during that time.

When the stock market crashed in 1929, the economy plummeted over the next few years, into what they now call the Great Depression.The Great Depression caused devastating effects to everyone in America. Many people during the Great Depression lost their jobs, their houses or farms, and struggled to just put food on the table. In to Kill a Mockingbird, it shows the many effects of the Great Depression in America.

The Great Depression plays an important part in today’s history. Millions of people suffered due to the Great Depression. Some of the wealthy people were not affected by the Great Depression as much as the poor people. Harper Lee describes in her novel, To Kill A Mockingbird how people’s life went through a drastic change through the Great Depression. The way the novel portrays what the characters went through the depression is similar to how people went through the depression in real life. Throughout the novel, the reader can start to understand what people went through during the Great Depression. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee describes many examples of how the people located in Maycomb went through the Great Depression.

The Great Depression terribly struck many Americans in the 1930s. It affected many families and it is also the time period that To Kill A Mockingbird took place in. The book’s setting is in Maycomb, Alabama. Maycomb is like any other town: the mystery, the schools, the football team, and the pageants. But the people there are different than those we see in our community. The majority of the white folks who live in the town are constantly discriminating against African Americans. Their minds have been trained by society to discriminate African Americans. The poisonous thoughts of discrimination has ended with lives