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Mob Mentality In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Historical Paper “The era can be summed up in two words: breadlines and debt (McCabe 12).” This quote is a great description of the time period the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee took place. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is a book about a young girl growing up in a small town in Alabama. Throughout the book, there are many historical references including the Jim Crow laws, mob mentality, and the Scottsboro trials.

One of the very first historical references in To Kill A Mockingbird is the Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow laws were a set of laws that were made to separate Blacks and Whites (Pilgrim). They separated colored people from white people and made a mindset among people that white people were better than Blacks (Pilgrim). …show more content…
Mob mentality is how people feel and react when large groups are present. When mob mentality is present in large groups of people, most of the people in the group will follow what everybody else is doing (Smith). When mob mentality is present, people often make decisions in a large group than they would by themselves; they often feel like their consequences will not be severe when acting in a group (Smith). When mobs form, riots may form as well. People in a mob will often follow the initial rioters actions (Edmonds). There are many cases of mob mentality in the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird. One example of mob mentality in the book is the mob at the jail (Lee 172). Many members of the community were at the mob and did things they wouldn’t normally do. There one and only goal was to hurt Tom Robinson (Lee 172). People in the mob threatened to hurt the kids. Many of the mob member were good members of the community and would never do that (Lee 172). The reason people threatened to hurt the kids was because of mob mentality that they wouldn’t have consequences (Smith). Mob mentality was just one of the historical references in To Kill a Mockingbird. The last historical reference is the Scottsboro

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