To Kill a Mockingbird

Characterize Miss Maudie Atkinson (characterization = personality traits, actions, thoughts/feelings, other people’s points of view). How typical is she of Maycomb’s women? What do the children think of her?

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee has been banned and/or challenged over thirty times since its publication in 1960. Effectively preventing many students from enjoying the novel and benefitting from its message. To ignore racism is no different than denying it ever existed. To Kill a Mockingbird is appropriate for mature adolescence/students and should not be banned from schools. Despite its sexual related content, or profanity, a valuable lesson remains that should be taught to students.

In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird events and conflicts take place causing changes in characters. Some of the characters that are changed include Mrs. Dubose, Jem, Scout, and even Mr. Arthur Radley. Each of these events has a background to help change the characters. Mrs. Dubose is helped to change her charter in the novel by Jem reading to her, Aunt Alexandra comes to live with Atticus, Jem, and Scout changing Scout’s character, and Arthur Radley’s character is changed by the event of Jem and Scout being attacked by Bob Ewell.

The tiny, sleepy, worn-out, dingy, slow-moving town of Maycomb, Alabama is where the novel takes place. The novel takes place in the early 1930s, during the Great Depression.

Matt Berman from Common Sense Media commented, “This richly textured novel, woven from the strands of small-town life, lets readers walk in the shoes of one fully realized character after another.” To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, one of the major messages is identity. Harper Lee lets the people look into the perspectives and identity of some of the characters that make it seem very life-like. In the novel, many characters possess both admirable and dislikable qualities which are shown through their actions. With the nurturing of her father, Scout contains the charming qualities of being courage and mature for her age. The father that instilled these characteristics in Scout, is Atticus Finch. While dealing with the stressful case of Tom Robinson, Atticus maintains to keep the likable aspects of sympathy and strong will. The antagonist in this novel fighting against Tom Robinson is Bob Ewell. Bob Ewell has instilled, in him, the terrible qualities of cruelty and racism. These life-like characters that Harper Lee illustrates gives people a clear vision of who the characters portray.

Based on the first six chapter of the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, we can see that it moves at a rapid pace. It starts off as the beginning of summer and by the end of the sixth chapter an entire year has passed by. Throughout this year, we see Scout 's, Dill 's, and Jem 's adventures during the summers and Scout going to school for the first time. We also receive some additional background information on the mysterious Arthur "Boo" Radley.

In To Kill a Mockingbird by harper Lee, The story of a southern life in Maycomb during the mid-1930s you begin an exploration of human morality. Each character has morals on how to treat some one of the other race. Atticus and Bob Ewell are two characters with contrasting morals. Tom Robertson an African American male is court between both of them and is dependent the towns social morals in a court case.

"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" (Lee 30). Atticus Finch says these words to his daughter, Scout, after he elucidates to her why it is important to not be quick to judge a book by its cover . In Harper Lee's To Kill A Mocking Bird, the main conflicts are centered around prejudice. In the tiny town of Maycomb, everybody is set on tradition and there is no room for oddity. Atticus Finch breaks down the walls that everybody else builds up about first and lasting impressions, slowly but surely. Atticus Finch is a discreet example of practicing equality because he espouses the outcasts of Maycomb.

Atticus Finch father of two children, always stood up for what was right in his beliefs. For example, Atticus explained to Scout that she could not hate Hitler for what he has done. Atticus never harmed anyone, which mockingbirds also do Also, after the he defended Tom Robinson, and many disliked him for it, Atticus was still elected a state legislature in his town because of his good values. . "'But it's okay to hate Hitler?' 'It is not,' he said. 'It's not okay to hate anybody.'" (246) Atticus describes to his daughter that it is not right to hate anyone even if they had done anything as terrible as Hitler would have had done. Mockingbirds also do not give any hate on anyone."'Mockingbirds don't do one thing but 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.'" (90) Neither Atticus nor a mockingbird would intentionally hurt someone nor something. When Atticus does not show hatred, he resembles a mockingbird. Atticus was also emotionally damaged. After Tom's trial, Atticus was emotionally hurt, because an innocent black man was charged guilty. Also, when Bob Ewell was embarrassed about an event that happened upon Atticus in the trial, Bob targeted Atticus' children. Wile his children were being targeted, Mr. Finch was emotionally damaged that an event about him, affected his loved ones. "...'It's not time to worry yet.' "(213) Atticus explain when the children ask about the night before when Tom was declared guilty. Atticus explains that the case was not over yet, because of the amount of time the judge was kept when deciding the fate of the defendant. Knowing he was cheated out of the case because of the defendants' race, Atticus produced emotional damage. The actions of Atticus Finch did not only affect him, but the people around him. When Atticus lost the trial, Bob

8. Why won’t Walter Cunningham, Jr. take Miss Caroline’s quarter? Because he doesn’t want everyone to know that he can’t afford lunch

Atticus Finch personifies a mockingbird because he goes out of his way throughout the book to avoid harming others. He chose to represent Tom Robinson because he thought he deserved to have a fair trial just like anyone else in Maycomb no matter his race. Bob Ewell threatens Atticus' life and then spits on him after finding out that Atticus is representing Tom Robinson. As Bob is yelling at him, Atticus does not retaliate. He takes out his handkerchief and wipes off the spit and continues walking home. Atticus always told Jem and Scout that it was not okay to hate anyone. He says hate is a very strong word, no one deserves to be hated, not even Hitler.

“What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you” (Ralph Waldo Emerson). To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a novel about people in the 30’s who show a number of different themes. Firstly, maturity is shown a lot near the end of the novel and during Tom Robinson’s trial. Secondly, racism is a huge part of this novel because a lot of people were judgemental and didn’t approve other races. Lastly, loyalty appears throughout the novel, especially during the trial. Many people in have really grown to be much better people as a result in these challenging times.

To kill a mockingbird book is a story you should never read. It takes a long time to get to the middle, the climax of the story. It also has unnecessary characters that should have been in the story only at the beginning or not in the book at all. Lastly, it tells the unnecessary characters story than telling us more about what happened to Tom Robinson, Atticus Finch, Jem, and Scout relationship and also about how blacks and whites are not treated equally.

The text type of To Kill a Mockingbird is a fiction novel which deals with the racism the author observed as a child in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. To Kill a Mockingbird was written by Harper Lee, who wrote her novel in a retrospective point of view. There were numerous aspects of historical, personal, cultural and social context in To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee was born on the 28th of April, 1926, in Monroeville Alabama. Monroeville was a close-knit community that has many similarities with Maycomb, which is the setting of To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee’s father was a prominent lawyer, whom she drew inspiration for the protagonists father, Atticus Finch. Among Lee’s childhood friends was Truman Capote, from whom she drew inspiration to the character Dill. These personal details help portray Harper Lee’s own childhood home, where racism and segregation was highly evident. Another example of context which helped shape To Kill a Mockingbird were the events that occurred during Harper Lee’s childhood. In 1931, when Harper Lee was five years old, nine African-American men were accused of raping two white women near Scottsboro, Alabama. After a series of lengthy, highly publicised, and often bitter trials, five of the nine men were sentenced to long term imprisonment. Many prominent lawyers and various members of the general public saw the sentences as spurious and believed that it was motivated by racial prejudice.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a 1962 film directed by Robert Mulligan, and is based on the novel by Harper Lee of the same name. The film stars Gregory Peck (Atticus Finch), Mary Badham (Scout Finch), Phillip Alford (Jem), John Megna (Dill), Robert Duvall (Boo Radley), and Brock Peters (Tom Robinson). To start the film a woman is narrating her childhood in Macomb, Alabama that was "a tired old town even in 1932." She (Scout) recalls that she was six years old that summer. Scout and her brother Jem are fascinated by the neighbors a few door down, particularly Boo Radley, which they share with Dill, a boy visiting town for the summer. The primary plot line for Scout, Jem, and Dill revolves around Boo Radley.