Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird takes place in rural south Alabama in a town called Maycomb during the Great Depression, in a time when many Southerners both accepted and expected discrimination toward minorities. Atticus Finch, a widowed father of two, trying to raise his children well, teaches them to see things from another’s perspective. Lee incorporates the crucial quality of empathy in the feelings of the characters and expresses the empathetic theme with the influence of racism and prejudice in Maycomb society within the main characters Scout, Jem, and Atticus.…
The Depression was a very rough and brutal period of the 1930's. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, the reader finds out how the depression look liked in Southern America. Along with that, the true effects, of this ruthless period of time, on the local citizens are described. One of the main characters, and also the narrator of the novel, is a young girl named Jean-Louise Finch, or Scout. Through other characters such as Atticus, Jem, and Boo Radley, a profound difference in Scout's journey from innocence to maturity is seen.…
In the book ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ a main part of the book showcases a court trial between a white woman and her father against a black man named Tom Robinson. ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is set in a fictional town in Alabama called Maycomb and is set in 1933 to 1935 during the Great Depression. The narrator, Jean Louise Finch (Scout) leads us through three years of her life and shows what life was like in the South during the Great Depression. Jean Louise Finch gives us a view on how children think, learn, and understand how things work and why they work like they do.…
The 1930’s were hard times in Southern America, where racism took place and slavery was seen in almost every city. The divisions between blacks and whites lead to believe that whites were and always have been superior. In Harper Lee’s well known book, To Kill a Mockingbird, we see how families where raised on a day to day basis and how each family dealt with colored people. The Cunningham 's, Ewell’s, and Finch’s are three of the more important white families in the story and despite that, have raised there families in certain ways. We learn about the upbringing of the children and how there parents played a key role. Although all three families are white, they have more differences among each other then similarities. Things that set them apart are things like their social standing in the town as well as how they react to the Great Depression of the 1930’s.…
In the story Of Mice and Men many characters break social conventions with each other. Comparing Lennie and Montresour the both of them can be unpredictable. Each one has a different belief system. How this comparison is shown is how I believe they broke social conventions in favor of their own ideas…
Throughout the 1930’s many people in the United States had to suffer though a Great Depression that caused many Americans to lose many things, starting from their jobs to even their own pride in themselves. How ever this was different for the people who lived in the south, the southern people were not only just affected by the Great Depression they were also affected by heavy racism and strongly enforced Jim Crow laws. With the enforced Jim Crow laws, these laws heavily restricted the life of a colored person, causing them to have restrictions to their daily lives. On the other hand the laws did not only affect just the lives of a colored person, the laws also affected even the people who are suppose to benefit from the laws, the white people. For example some of the white people who were against the Jim Crow laws and were for racial equality were even lynched by their own race. But, to truly understand what life was really like for southern people in the 1930’s, the book To Kill A Mockingbird created by author Harper Lee, informs her readers through the plot, character development and tone of the story to show her readers what southern life in the 1930’s was really like.…
Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird” explains the ways in which individuals are limited and trapped by the assumptions of others. In the novel “To Kill A Mockingbird” Tom Robison, Scout, Jem, Boo Raddley are all individuals that are limited or confined, due to the difference in their looks others assume they are different. Individuals are labelled by others in their society by how they are different from the “in” crowd. They are not considered equal to everyone else due to who they are and what they look like. These differences make others assume that they are inferior to them, so that they don’t quite fit in with society.…
Prejudice is a foggy window which we all look out of. It impairs not only sight, but our thoughts and actions. When looking through the window, not everyone can see past the fog. Sometimes, we see people with differences; they are what we may not want them to be; whether it be because of color or sex, race or religion. Tom Robinson, a black man, is accused of raping a white woman, Mayella Ewell, and is brought to trial. The townspeople of Maycomb believe in Tom’s guilt whereas Atticus and his children believe likewise. There are distinct views concerning Robinson’s innocence- views influenced by prejudice in Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird. When people rely on prejudice to create authority, they are blinded by ignorance.…
Everyone makes judgments about others, there is no way around it, what a person should work on though is not to “snap” judge other people. To Kill a Mockingbird by Haper Lee demonstrates how being quick to judge is wrong. To Kill a Mockingbird is globally known, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and selling over fifteen million copies. To Kill a Mockingbird shows how judging a person before you get to know them generates a hateful, prejudice environment based on false pretenses.…
The Great Depression hit the United States in the 1930s; large numbers of people lived in poverty, desperately in need of more food, clothing, and shelter. The Great Depression led to many things including poverty. Racism in the 1930's was passed down from generation to generation. Racism led to violence, especially in the south. In "To Kill a Mocking Bird," Harper Lee uses the Finch's actions and words to explore complicated social issues such as racism, poverty, and domestic violence.…
Discrimination is a terrible and unfair act. White men and women are treating African Americans differently because of their skin color or race. Not only did lynch mobs lynch African Americans, but they also lynched and abused Chinese, Japanese and Italian immigrants. How are they harming other races with discrimination? They harm them by verbally and physically abuse them like kidnapping, beating, punching, shooting and even hanging.…
In “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Atticus Finch included many themes in his closing speech to the jury. Some of the themes were loneliness, racism, human nature, and equality. The theme loneliness was demonstrated in the speech when Atticus attacked Mayella’s loneliness and blamed her for her child – like decision to accuse Tom Robinson for her unhappiness. “She did something every child has done – she tried to put the evidence of her offence away from her. But in this case she was no child hiding stolen contraband: she struck out at her victim …” Another theme of Atticus’s speech was racism, which was shown when the jury did not believe the word of Tom Robinson, a black man, over the word of “white trash” like the Ewells. Atticus attempted his point that Tom had been exploited and unjustly accused. “And so a quiet, respectable, humble Negro who had the unmitigated temerity to ‘feel sorry' for a white woman has had to put his word against two white people's.” Racism was also demonstrated throughout the story by how Tom Robinson was convicted purely because he was a black man and his accuser was white. The evidence was so powerfully in his favor, that race was clearly the single defining factor in the jury's decision. Human nature was one of the themes shown in Atticus’s speech. It was shown when Atticus reminded the jury that not all Negroes lie, not all are immoral, and not all can be trusted around women – black or white, and that blackness does not necessarily associate to evil. “… some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be trusted around women – black or white …” Atticus then further appealed to the jury the honest of nature. “… this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men. There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire.” Lastly,…
Courageous people are the individuals that are influential and our role models. These people are known to be brave, confident and gallant. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, Jem and Scout understand the true nature of courage by observing many characters in the novel who clearly demonstrate this theme. Courage is shown through the actions of Mrs. Dubose, Arthur (Boo) Radley and most importantly Atticus.…
The coexistence of good and evil is an eternal question that has been bothering people for centuries. Many writers tried to explore the moral nature of human beings- whether they are essentially good or essentially evil. To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee is a superb example of such exploration of good and evil in a human nature.…
Sleepy Maycomb, like other Southern towns, suffers considerably during the Great Depression. Poverty reaches from the privileged families, like the Finches, to the Negroes and “white trash” Ewells, who live on the outskirts of town. Harper Lee paints a vivid picture of life in this humid Alabama town where tempers and bigotry explode into conflict. Throughout the book racism, poverty, and domestic violence appear as important themes that intertwine with the plot and the characters. The author brings attention to these themes through characters actions and their consequences.…