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To Kill A Mockingbird Reflection

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Embedded in the heart of American social history is the spectre of racial and economic inequality and discrimination against people who are outside the norms of conventional white society. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression Era, these traits of life were recurrent, especially in the Southern states. Harper Lee recognizes this and writes what would become one of the most treasured pieces in the history of literature: To Kill A Mockingbird (1960). Centered around Maycomb County, a small town in Alabama, Jean “Scout” Finch, a bright juvenile girl , depicts her simplistic life with her widowed father, Atticus Finch, and her older brother Jem. Jeremy “Jem” Finch, a role model to Scout, spends his time engaging in activities with his sister and their friend Dill Harris - those of which routinely concern their reclusive neighbor, Boo Radley. The Radley family lives in unorthodox ways, inducing the town to assume fallacious stories that they are deranged and damaged. The lives of the children change forever when Atticus takes on the case of a black man, Tom Robinson, accused of raping a white woman. The threat of danger and bigotry looms over their heads as Jem must learn to accept his beloved town for it’s negligent flaws. His realizations are parallel to the movement he represents: the movement of purity and innocence to the bitter reality. Along the way, he discovers, with a heavy heart, that violence is often times the catalyst to change. Jem Finch’s maturity and growth

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