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Racism In Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird

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The book that I chose to read is by Harper Lee, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ The novel’s setting features the Deep South and envelops an intense portrayal of prejudice and race narrated through a little girl’s eyes. Filled with impressive evocations of American life at the peak of the Great Depression that shook the nation in the 1930s, whilst also underpinned by caring and moral susceptibility, the novel proofs as both an excellent rendering of a particular place and time as well as an all-inclusive tale of how old and wicked perceptions can be triumphed by understanding. It was published by J.B Lippincott in New York in 1960 (Topham, 2018). ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ has received both positive and negative feedbacks from a wide audience of readers. However, over the past few decades, the book has been challenged by most learning institutions as well as readers which have led to its ban and censorship from several learning institutions. The objective of this paper is to establish why the book has been challenged. As a classic novel, Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ received the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. Although it has been considered a classic literature by several readers, the novel still remains in the top list of the banned books. The novel’s profanity, racial content, and its references to rape have provoked many …show more content…
The school also received numerous letters of complaint about the novel and its consequential use in the classrooms. However, some found the situation funny and ridiculous. The book was also flagged in 1968 as the second most criticized about novel receiving the most negative attentions. In Eden Valley, Minnesota, learning institutions banned the book for the words “whore lady” and “damn.” Sherill Vernon Veron, a New York School District described the book as a “trashy and filthy novel” which led to its

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