Everyday there is something new to be learned. Infants learn how to read in their classrooms. Teenagers learn about calculus. Adults learn how to be organized in a work space. But, how is it that people learn how to behave in society? Usually parents teach their children moral lessons; however, there are people that do not completely understand these ethics. Some individuals were taught through reading how to act properly around others. Often times in an education setting, classic novels are used as teaching tools because they enlighten the reader. One may be illuminated from a book as to how the government works, how there is suffering in other places and even how people have acted in the past. According to BBC News, people are getting used …show more content…
During the 1950s, the Jim Craw Laws were still in effect, essentially meaning that the color of your skin was more important than the values one had. People used to believe that being of color – “despite its abundance of admirable qualities”- made one less than the hoi polloi (MLA). For instance, even though the Ewels were the lowest of the low because of their behavior and mediocrity, they were still higher in the social chain than the color people. Talking about racism back in that era was a highly controversial topic. When the book was released in 1960, many people were disturbed by the fact that someone would talk about it so freely in a favorable way towards black people and how racism works both ways. Not only white people would degrade color people by saying “a common, ugly term to label somebody” such as “nigger-lover” (Lee 107), just the same, colored people would deplore of white people being in their areas. “You ain't got no business bringin' white chillun here—they got their church, we got our'n. It is our church, ain't it, Miss Cal?"(Lee 135). Nevertheless, years later, the book still enlightens people about racial issues, for example the comedian Meera Syal commented on 2007 how "To Kill a Mockingbird was the first book that made me aware of racism, and aware of what was happening to me. It even …show more content…
According to Thomas Mallon, “There is no ambiguity in To Kill a Mockingbird; at the end of the book, we know exactly what we knew at the beginning; Atticus Finch is a good man, Tom Robinson was an innocent victim of racism, and that lynching is bad” (MLA). Yet, students are still required to read the novel, not because of the lack of potentially controversial material that causes mystery, but due to how they enlighten students on diverse topics and