To Kill A Mockingbird Essays: The Perception Of Gender Roles

Perspectives can change beliefs in many ways. In Harper Lee’s novel ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’, Bob Ewell hears and sees Atticus defending Tom Robinson who is black, therefore, he believes Atticus ‘loves niggers’. Jem, Scout, and Dill have never seen Boo Radley come out at day and they hear rumors that Boo only comes out at night. People believe rumors and their perspectives until they get the truth and change their beliefs.

The characters of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird are all different in their own way. Sometimes they can seem like the most infuriating people in the world, but then again they can be helpful, loving, and caring. The citizens of Maycomb County are stereotyped a lot throughout the book. They are labeled as many different things, but some of the stereotypes made aren’t entirely correct. A lot of people in To Kill a Mockingbird stereotype others by the way they look or talk based on what society considers normal. Two of the main characters in the book are stereotyped; Scout and Atticus Finch.

Going back only a few decades, sexism and gender roles were very apparent, especially during times such as the Great Depression. In that time, the women were not allowed in the workplace, but only the home. With these restraints placed on them, the woman of this time learned to deal with their placement, and to look at the positive side of things. This same situation occurs in To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. In this book, a girl named Jean Louise Finch, nicknamed Scout, slowly comes of age throughout the book. Scout shows she is doing this when she realizes the true meaning of being a lady, reacts to Tom’s death in a non-aggressive way, and wears a dress.

In today’s world power is everything. Power is having control over one’s life, and sometimes even controlling the lives of others. In Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird” power is one huge factor in the story. You see when Tom Robinson, an African-American male, is wrongfully accused and later convicted of “raping” Mayella Ewell, a poor white woman, both his and her’s power is put to the test. This leads to two questions. Does gender, class, and race determine how powerful you are? And if it does; is Mayella powerful? In my opinion, she is both powerless and powerful. She is powerless when it comes to class and gender. Yet she’s powerful when it comes to race.

In his article,“Herd” Mentality Explained, Rick Nauert Ph.D. talks about how we as humans tend to follow things even when people may never even realize it. This connects to how Lee uses the characters of Jem and Scout to show the struggle of choosing between following the herd or being an individual.

never had a woman to raise her. Her Aunt Alexandra doesn’t approve of her unladylike behavior and tries to change her tomboyish tendencies. Scout resentment to being called a girl is really shown because she always takes the word girl as an insult, Aunt Alexandra is staying with them for an extended period so to scouts dismay, she realizes she must follow her aunt’s rules. Scouts’s aunt makes her wear a dress because that is how a lady is supposed to dress in those times but as read, scout hates to have to wear a dress and doesn’t want to change the way she has been all her life just because he aunt comes to town. Scout spends much of her time with her older brother and constantly trying to prove herself as his equal. “I felt the starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on me, and for the second time in my life I thought of running away.

When the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, was written by Harper Lee, the Southern United States was still clinging tightly to traditional values. Southern societies pressured men to behave as gentlemen, and women were expected to be polite and wear dresses. These stringent gender roles were adhered to in small southern towns because they were isolated from the more progressive attitudes in other areas of the United States. Harper Lee documents the life of one young girl growing up in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. Jean Louise Finch, also known as "Scout," is a young girl searching for her identity. Scout, a young tomboy, is pressured by adults who insist she should conform to the

Southerners are known to be proud of their traditional beliefs. To Kill A Mockingbird allows its readers to question and consider those beliefs. Maycomb represents a typical old southern town. Not many people move into Maycomb and not many people who live there journey beyond its boundaries. As a result, the opinions held by many of the citizens of Maycomb are left to grow and foster in the same families for many generations. The circumstances in Maycomb are less than ideal for generating change and more prone to sustaining traditionally accepted codes. Two codes embedded within southern social beliefs are class and race.

The criticism brought on by social roles negatively impacts one’s views on themselves and their actions. Maycomb’s strict social roles have lowered somes self esteem and has trapped people in a certain personality or financial stance. These social roles can get in a person’s head and change their views and actions in result. An example of this is shown at the school where Scout explains to Miss Caroline about the Ewells, ” He’s one of the Ewell’s...They come the first day every year and then they leave… You’re supposed to mark ‘em absent the rest of the year”(27). The Ewells have always left the first day of school because that’s who they are and who they will always be, but how are the children supposed to better themselves if this social role has been placed on them since birth. This normal behavior of the Ewells restricts the

Why do people want to change the way we live our life? I don’t fit in, so what? In the book “To Kill a Mockingbird”, Lee uses characterization and tone in order to convey the idea that in society every gender has to follow their code of conduct, consequently it restricts people from being themselves in order to fit in.

In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird a major theme is the loss of innocence. Whether from emotional abuse, racial prejudice or learning, Boo, Tom, and Scout all lose their innocence in one sense or another. The prejudice that each character endures leads to their loss. Through the responses of Boo, Tom, and Scout, Harper Lee shows how each character responded differently to their loss of innocence.

To Kill A Mockingbird takes place in the 1930’s Alabama during the great depression. From reading the book, we get taken into the roots of human behaviour and find out some of the experiences that people had back in 1930's Alabama. The book centres around the main character Scout Finch, and through her narration, she shows us how people thought, and what racism looks like at that time. The small town of Maycomb is a place where everyone knows each other and expects everyone to act a certain way. When Atticus, a man who is respected by the entire town, decides to defend Tom Robinson, a black man, the whole town turns on him because he did not do what society thought was right. Societal expectations have a major impact on an individual's actions. An example society expects you to do could be as simple as holding the door for someone else or . It’s a social norm, individuals who have to make a decision will tend to do what society thinks is right even if they have to go against what

Gender in To Kill A Mockingbird Gender discrimination is often hard to identify, because stereotypes are part of society and gender role assumptions are easy to make. People rely on general assumptions because they want gender to be simple, when it is actually very complicated. To Kill a Mockingbird is a great example of how gender expectations and roles shape the life of a child. The character of Scout To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee undergoes a change in attitude and behavior based on female gender stereotypes and expectations as demonstrated by the 1930’s setting of the novel, Jem’s childish manipulation, and Aunt Alexandra’s desire to change Scout’s tomboy behavior.

“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”. Discuss this quote from Atticus in relation to 3 characters from the novel.

“Men are taught to apologize for the weaknesses, women for their strengths.” (Lois Wyse) Gender roles are apart of life whether we like it or not, but in the 30s they were extremely prominent. Women were meant to look pretty and proper while men strong and masculine. In To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee writes from the perspective of an eight year old girl, Scout, about her life in Maycomb Alabama. She lives with her brother, Jem, and her father, Atticus. Atticus is assigned a case to represent a black man, named Tom Robinson, against a rape charge which angers a lot of people. Many of the chapters consist of the trial and in the end Tom is killed. Alongside dealing with the trial, Lee writes about