...our society in modern ways. Though racism may be less blatant now in many cases, its existence is undeniable” While Sharpton claims we have come a long way in regard to prejudice of blacks, in the 1930s many blacks and whites who opposed the segregation of blacks felt the hatred produced by white southerners. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, it is obvious that there are many issues in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. In a time where segregation was more common than ever, many southerners began to form bias opinions towards African Americans. This unjust judgment of different...
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...In the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch is a well known lawyer, father to Scout and Jem Finch, and citizen in Maycomb County. His predominant characteristic is integrity. The definition of integrity is, “adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty” (Dictionary.com). Atticus Finch shows this in the court and in his home. Most people only play by the rules and keep people’s wellbeing in mind when it can affect their own reputation or they are out in public. Atticus not only shows his integrity in town, but also in his own home and to his children as well. Scout and Jem have absorbed the genuineness of their father, through many daily lessons to life-threatening troubles. Mr. Finch is very unique...
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...Society’s Impact On Growth And Understanding In her novel To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee demonstrates how society shapes our understandings of others, but that this can be mitigated by strong role models. Scout Finch is strongly impacted by the “old traditions of the south” during her growth into womanhood and when she pushes against the stereotypes placed on her as a southerner and a young lady to find her gender identity. The beliefs of Atticus Finch and his involvement in the courtroom have had a big impact on Scout’s growth. Atticus’ beliefs were different than the beliefs of most people of Maycomb and he “bestowed a benevolent order on the Finch household by his example” which slowly shifted Scout’s views on their society’s division....
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...The Essence of Man Being a man comes with many responsibilities. Being a man that people can follow, is something that is being overlooked nowadays. Atticus is a man with many responsibilities, people can follow him and learn how to be beneficial to society from him. Atticus’ importance in To Kill a Mockingbird is by far imperative of all the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird because of the lessons people can learn just from Atticus’ actions in the book. Atticus represents various traits throughout To Kill a Mockingbird, but there is three that stood out the most. The traits that I felt made Atticus a likeable character is consideration, gratefulness, and intelligence. Atticus Finch’s traits of consideration, gratefulness, and intelligence, show how much he impacted To Kill a Mockingbird and other characters in it. The first trait I felt that Atticus expressed throughout To Kill a Mockingbird was consideration. Being considerate is an essential trait...
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...a child, Jean Louise Finch, who was nicknamed Scout throughout the book. The dominant themes in this story were justice, courage and racism. To Kill a Mockingbird was basically about the story about the lives of two children, Scout and Scout’s older brother Jeremy, nicknamed Jem in the story, who were both the children of Atticus Finch, and their progression of their mentality for childhood to adulthood. This was greatly influenced by their father, Atticus and the case of Tom Robinson in which Atticus was defending Tom. Atticus was a proud and dignified person in Maycomb. Everyone in Maycomb respects him and he also respects himself. When Atticus was given the case of Tom Robinson, because he always wants to do what he sees as being right, he has to take Tom’s case because he sees this as his duty. Although he knows this case was a lost one because of the racial society he lives in where a white person’s words always triumph over a black person’s words, he still tries his utmost best to defend Tom Robinson. “I’ve got to live with myself” is how he explains his determination to Scout. If he didn’t defend Tom, he “couldn’t hold up his head in town.” Because his would have proved that he was as just as racial as the Maycomb folks. Atticus was “the deadest shot in Maycomb County” and he was nicknamed “One-Shot Finch” but he never boasted about his talent and he certainly disapproves of Scout boasting on his behalf. Despite his many talents, Atticus was a modest man. He never...
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...that she learns growing up in the 1930s. Scout and her brother, Jeremy “Jem” Finch, mature in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, in a one-parent home. Their father and aunt, Atticus and Alexandra, raise them with help from Calpurnia, their African American maid. Harper Lee weaves several different themes throughout the novel, but some are more prominent than others. Lee develops the main themes of growth, protection of innocence, and perception throughout To Kill a Mockingbird, disguised in the form of lessons learned during the narrator’s childhood. Harper Lee reveals her theme of growth...
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...both come from the same book/movie. It would be Atticus Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird, it is a classic example of heroism and doing the right thing and there is many readers who would agree with that statement. I read this book at the young age of 14 in middle school when I was still developing my feel for the ethics of right and wrong so it made a lasting impact on me growing up and developing as a person. Summarize the book or hero’s life in a few paragraphs; Everyone should know the story of To Kill A Mockingbird but if you don’t, let me share it with you. It happens in a little town of Maycomb, Alabama in the heat of all the racism in the South. In this little town everyone knows each other and everyone knows what happens. The main characters are the Finch family with Atticus, Scout, and Jem in their small house in the middle of Maycomb. Scout is a young girl who grew up with a lot of boys and acts that way in the way she deals with conflict. Jem is the older brother who isn’t really isn’t in the picture a lot but is in a crucial incident of the story with Scout. Atticus is a very well known coveted lawyer; everyone in town knows him and looks up to him as a person and a professional. That was short lived when Atticus did something he knew was right but society said it was wrong very wrong. The name is Tom Robinson and he was a black man being accused of raping and beating a white woman. When Atticus did the right thing to stand trial for Tom, he didn’t...
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...“To Kill a Mocking Bird”: Teaching Tolerance Through Empathy Mary Ellyn Fogarty December 8, 2012 America in the mid 1950’s and 1960’s was undergoing a profound social metamorphosis. Events such as, in 1954, the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, with the Supreme Court ruling public school segregation illegal, which many believe sparked the civil rights era, in 1956 Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus to a white man, “precipitating the Montgomery bus boycott, led by Martin Luther King Jr.” (To Kill a Mockingbird: Civil Rights Era, 2012), in 1957 federal troops were sent to Little rock Arkansas to protect nine African American students who were going white high school, per the court ordered desegregation of school, were challenging and for some forcing the way in which Americans lived, their beliefs and their treatment of African Americans that had been indoctrinated into their consciousness from the time they were born and many did not understand why this treatment was inappropriate, prejudice and unconstitutional. For some these changes were viewed as not an intrusion or criticism of their way of life but as...
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...author Harper Lee criticizes the society of the fictional town known as Maycomb for many issues that still occur today. One societal issue that this novel highlights is racism, specifically with the trial of Tom Robinson, who was wrongfully accused and convicted of rape. Harper Lee also examines other, just as important topics to society. The novel takes place in mainly one town in Alabama known as Maycomb during the Great Depression where finding a job is increasingly difficult. Although fictional, it accurately...
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...men leave Atticus and Tom Robinson alone. “‘Let’s clear out,’ he called. ‘Let’s get going, boys.’As they had come, in ones and twos, the men shuffled back to their ramshackle cars. Doors slammed, engines coughed, and they were gone” (Lee 206). This proves that one person or group can make a change in injustice by making an action. Mr. Cunningham noticed what he has done do he decided to change his thought, for making the change of thought all the men cleared out. As a result, Tom Robinson will not be lynched. Since Mr. Cunningham decided to move out he is changing his thought on how we treats African-Americans. The injustice on Tom was less since Mr. Cunningham told the men to clear out. Secondly. Ms. Maudie explains that Atticus is making a good difference in society. “Atticus Finch won’t win, he can’t win, but he’s the only man in these parts who can keep a jury out so long in a case like that. And I thought to myself, well, we’re making a step--it’s just a baby-step, but it’s a step” (Lee 289). This shows that injustice has changes a little bit because of one person. It is not all the way, but it is more than what they have had. Since Atticus defended a black man people changed their thoughts on how to respect them, even the jury. If Atticus would not have defended Tom, then the jury would not have took two hours to think about it. If it takes this long Atticus changed the minds of the people on African-Americans. By knowing what is right and acting upon it, Atticus is making...
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...novel saw its potential but thought it needed reworking. With her editor, Lee spent two and a half more years revising the manuscript. By 1960 the novel was published. In a 1961 interview with Newsweek magazine, Lee commented: Writing is the hardest thing in the world, . . . but writing is the only thing that has made me completely happy. To Kill a Mockingbird was an immediate and widespread success. Within a year, the novel sold half a million copies and received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Within two years, it was turned into a highly acclaimed film. Readers admire the novel’s sensitive and probing treatment of race relations. But, equally, they enjoy its vivid account of childhood in a small rural town. Summing up the novel’s enduring impact in a 1974 review, R. A. Dave called To Kill a Mockingbird . . . a movingly human drama of the jostling worlds—of children and adults, of innocence and experience, of kindness and cruelty, of love and hatred, of humor and pathos, and above all of appearance and reality—all taking the reader to the root of human behavior. For almost four decades, Harper Lee has declined to comment on her popular—and only—novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, preferring instead to let the novel speak for itself. Today, the novel continues to delight and inspire millions of readers. [A writer] should write about what he knows and...
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...In “The Courthouse Ring: Atticus Finch and the Limits of Southern Liberalism,” Malcolm Gladwell criticizes former governor of Alabama, James “Big Jim” Folsom. He compares him to literary hero Atticus Finch from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Most people believe that both were noble people for taking the stance against racism that they did, but Gladwell presents them both in a different, less heroic image. Though I do not personally agree with Gladwell, I do understand why he believes the way that he does. In the article, Gladwell introduces the reader to “Big Jim” Folsom by providing a brief description of the man himself. He notes that Folsom was a charismatic man who believed in racial equality in time where Jim Crow laws were in full effect. Also, most politicians would not have dared to venture into the deep-south on such a platform, but Folsom made “a proud and lonely stand for racial justice” in many ways such as not segregating the audience who attended his speeches. In Alabama, politics generally had a “friends and neighbors” effect, meaning that people generally voted based on personality rather than political issues and the state was divided into smaller island communities that were each run by a “courthouse ring.” Though he was considered something of a radical for his stance on racism, Folsom was not actually looking for a drastic change—he simply wanted privileged whites to be more amiable to black people. In spite of public disapproval, Folsom invited black...
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...watchman is sort of home coming novel, written by Harper Lee who is also the author behind “To Kill a Mockingbird “.Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman narrates the visit of Jean Louise Finch as she cast a state rampant with racial apprehension, an familiar friend converted to potential love interest, and a dad who no longer in Jean Louise Finch point of view appears as flawless as she once considered him to be. Jean Louise Finch goes back to her hometown in which she grew up as a child of Maycomb, Alabama, for what she thought would be an ordinary stopover. However, her flourishing interest to an old buddy named Hank starts to perplex her stay. Mind that no one wanted her with hank because his family is “white trash” as stated by Aunt Alexandra they also felt that he wanted to take over her father law firm. Her frustrations grow even more with her finding out that both her love interest Hank and her father Atticus Finch are a part of an society committed to conserve the treatment of blacks by white males and segregation. Jean Louise’s father took the cases of two black men previously getting them off there charges. Jean Louise, is hurt because she has always recognized her pops as a chief of civil rights, she feels betrayed by both of the men who make a major impact on her life. She is No longer sure who she may and can put her trust in, Jean Louise castigates out towards the people she “loves” and convicts them for putting up with racism. She...
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...The jury convicts Tom of rape because he is black, and because he’s a man. Atticus accuses the jury of stereotyping, saying, “… (The witnesses for the state were) confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption – the evil assumption – that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women” (Lee 273). Atticus, along with the entire courthouse, knows that he’s right, but that doesn’t change a thing. There’s also a stereotype for white women, in this case Mayella, that she would never tempt a Negro, because in their society that is unheard of. Even though the Ewells are at the bottom of their class and are, in a way, treated as dirt, they are still treated better than a kind, innocent, black man. The court uses pity for Mayella as an excuse to believe her. Atticus again explains, “She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance, but I cannot pity her: she is white. She knew full well the enormity of her offence” (Lee 272). Atticus is explaining the huge advantage white people have against Negroes, and Mayella uses that as her defense. Common stereotypes are used in the final decision of a case that is so uncommon no one knows what to do. Every single person at the courthouse knows that Tom Robinson...
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...on. Conflicts can be found everyday with in our society from our political leaders arguing to little things like children...
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