...It is true that Harper Lee’s novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is more than just a simple story. Novels that challenge the reader’s way of thinking become distinct from others. Lee explores key ideas such as prejudice and courage and challenges readers to think about major moral issues experienced in society .The story at first seems like any other childish novel but Lee highlights key ideas making the novel evolve into something much greater. Lee shows the co-existence of Good and Evil and the moral nature of human beings in society. Readers re-evaluate their understanding of the world making the book much more significant. Ideas such as prejudice and courage are emphasized in To Kill a Mockingbird. Prejudice is the preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee isolates characters and depicts ways prejudice is used. She demonstrates the evils of prejudice and the result can be quite confronting to readers. Lee reinforces the idea that all men and women are created equal and have the same rights. To Kill a Mockingbird exposes the dangers of stereotyping and prejudice. In the novel the idea of equality is lost even in the house of god. Prejudice appears in many forms in the novel. An early form of prejudice in the novel is the children’s obsession with Boo Radley which appears all throughout the novel. Local Gossip portrays Boo as a malevolent phantom. The children run by the Radley house out of fear acting as if the...
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...How would you feel if you were a child living in the early 1900’s when racism and segregation were such a large scale problem. In the masterpiece novel, To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee, she tells the story of a girl named Scout who’s growing up during a time when not everyone is treated with respect and equality. For a young girl, Scout understands more about things in life because of her father, Atticus, a very wise lawyer who doesn’t believe in racism. Even though she knows more than other kids there are still many things she is yet to learn that cause her to ask questions without any thought about what she’s saying. She’s joined by her older brother Jem who makes sure to keep her under check to stop her from doing anything too...
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...To Kill A Mockingbird: Overview Vanessa Vigneau English 400 March 20, 2015 Cultural and Literary Significance To Kill A Mockingbird was written during the most critical time periods of racial discrimination, the 1930s. During this time racial prejudice was already an issue, especially in the southern states, but during the Great Depression it escalated even more and the imagery in To Kill A Mockingbird allows the reader to fully understand the impact prejudice had on children and adults. To further explore the cultural significance it is important to also realize that the story time period closely related to the time period in which it was published, 1960. During this time, many were trying to fight Jim Crow laws of segregation and were in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. (2007) This story would seem obvious to some as a coming of age story involving the main character and narrator, Scout, but it was much more involved than a little girl growing up and learning to see things from another’s point of view. This story involves the cultural significance of how people lived in the south in the 1930s and how children and adults were affected by the on-going, ugly, violent prejudice. In the story Scout and Jem are taught by their father lessons about courage and tolerance as it is becoming clear to Atticus, he can no longer shield his children from what is happening in their town. He teaches them to stand in someone else’s shoes and consider the world from that perspective...
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...Minh-Thi Nguyen Mrs. Smith English 1 Honors/ Period 4 November 14, 2013 To Kill a Mockingbird Purpose Passage Questions “Atticus reached down and picked up the candy box. He handed it to Jem. Jem opened the box. Inside, surrounded by wads of damp cotton, was a white, perfect camellia It was a Snow-on –the-Mountain… ‘Old hell-devil, old hell-devil. Why can’t she leave me alone?’ …Jem picked up the candy box and threw it in the fire. He picked up the camellia, and when I went off to bed I saw him fingering the wide petals” (148). Questions: 1. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, why does Mrs. Dubose give Jem the perfect white camellia? What does its color symbolize and how is it significant to the novel? 2. The “Snow-on-the-Mountain” camellia in the candy box is cut and does not have any roots. Moreover, Mrs. Dubose only gave the camellia to Jem. What does this symbolize and what was the message that Mrs. Dubose was trying to convey? 3. Why does Harper Lee end Part One of the novel with Jem’s decision of keeping the camellia? 1. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, why does Mrs. Dubose give Jem the perfect white camellia? What does it symbolize and how is it significant to the novel? In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, when Mrs. Dubose criticizes Atticus as a “nigger-lover” and taunts the children for their father’s decision to defend an African American in court, Jem deliberately destroys every one of her precious camellias...
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...During the Great Depression in the 1930’s, african americans were facing the harsh segregation that existed everywhere. Segregation occured in schools, public bathrooms, buses and other public places. In Harper Lee’s best seller To Kill a Mockingbird, segregation is coupled with injustice in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. Courage is constantly shown to be the best way to combat injustice. Characters Atticus Finch, Boo Radley and Link Deas display courage during the difficult times in Maycomb Alabama. Atticus Finch defends Tom Robinson even when failure is inevitable so he can live up to his personal morals. Atticus is the most courageous character in To Kill a Mockingbird because he is aware of the repercussions of this trial and the dangerous impact it could potentially have. Tom Robinson is a black male wrongfully...
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...To Kill a Mockingbird indeed has many different themes that one can interpret from the extraordinary storytelling written by Harper Lee, but there is one that sticks out in particular. One of many themes that can be portrayed is that of empathy and perspective. Empathy is an act of kindness that can be seen in practically everyone, there is no one who is so emotionally jaded that they have never felt for another and felt empathy towards them. In the story of To Kill a Mockingbird, you can go from feeling your heart warming up from the sweet and kind spirit of Scout, to the heart wrenching feeling when held witness to the sickening inhumane acts played out by many of the adults in Maycomb County. Throughout the story, numerous times you see acts of kindness, from both the children and adults, but all the meanwhile...
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...How does Harper Lee present the theme of Prejudice in the novel? ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’? In the novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Harper Lee presents the theme of prejudice in a number of different ways. She shows that prejudice is present throughout all levels of society in Maycomb. She directs her attention to groups and individuals. ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ was set in the mid 1930’s and although slavery was abolished by the North in 1865 throughout America, the South still treated blacks as inferior, as the slaves they once were and the residents of Maycomb County typify this. The main theme of prejudice in this book is that of racial prejudice. The whole trial of Tom Robinson is full of prejudice against him. Before the trial even commences Reverend Sykes invites the children to sit in the coloured balcony – (Pg 181). Even the black and white public must sit separately! Extreme racial prejudice is shown to us by Harper Lee when she tells us of the colour segregation. In Maycomb there is segregation between black and white people. This is emphasised by the way blacks file in last and are seated in the balcony. Their politeness to the children is shown when four black people give up their front row seats for them. This shows white children also have authority over black adults. It is ironic that the children will have the same viewpoint as the black people attending the trial – in terms of where they see it from. At the time black people could not show their disapproval...
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...“ To kill a mockingbird” by Harper Lee and “Antigone” by Sophocles are both dramas having to do with justice, the main characters in both dramas are struggling to bring justice to a society or situation that was lacking. In Sophocles’ drama, Antigone was trying to bring justice by burying her brother Polyneices against the kings, Creon’s, orders. While in “To kill a mocking bird” Atticus is an attorney in a case where race is a major issue and he is trying to save Tom Robinson from being convicted of a crime where there’s overwhelming evidence of his innocence. Both “Antigone” and “To kill a mockingbird’s” themes seem to revolve around justice which is proven when Antigone buries her brother and Atticus agrees to take on Tom Robinsons case. Another large theme in both dramas is the idea that women are somehow ‘lesser’ because of their femininity, a cause of this might be because of the era that the dramas are set in. Throughout “To kill a mockingbird” Scout does her best to avoid ‘girly’ things so that she can keep playing with her brother Jem, its only later in the novel that Scout begins to realize that being a girl is more about having positive traits than lacking them. This theme continues in “Antigone”, most pointedly when Ismene states “Bethink thee, sister, we are left alone; Shall we not perish wretchedness of all, If in defiance of the law we cross A monarch's will?--weak women, think of that, Not framed by nature to contend with men. Remember this too that the stronger...
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...the story To Kill a Mockingbird this novel shows how much social inequality was a factor in daily life, and how people were treated differently in the era of segregation. A major point of this novel that ties it all together is that an African American man named Tom Robinson that was accused of rape by Mayella Ewell. Tom was treated very differently than all of the caucasians throughout the whole story, only because he was African American....
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...So done With This SHit During the 1930s, also know as the Great Depression, poverty and racial segregation are issues. Many cities in the South, in the 1930s, are reluctant to give up old beliefs of prejudice. Harper Lee shows prejudice in her book To Kill a Mockingbird set during the Great Depression. To Kill a Mockingbird follows the narrator, Scout, who is a girl learning about how the South works. Scout learns that prejudice is very present in her everyday life. Lee uses the actions of others to illuminate the issues of prejudice against the Cunninghams, Atticus Finch, and Dolphus Raymond. Prejudice is evident in the book through how people treat the Cunninghams. During the novel the Cunninghams are told to be a poor family who are considered “trash” by the townspeople. Those who believe...
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...To Kill A Mockingbird is widely known and acknowledge for addressing themes of tolerance and justice, which directly contradict the racial climate in the South. Lee was one of a small amount of white writers, especially as a woman that would approach the subject of racism and segregation at a time where it was of great contention. The film was praised by the United Church Women association, who encouraged its members to see it, for it ‘handles very beautifully the whole area of race relations.’ Phillip Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times included reflections on the way racial relations are addressed in the film, stating that he believed that the prejudices that were featured in the film ‘made [us] more conscious of them, and perhaps more ashamed’. He also suspected that ‘even Southerners will take it, flinchingly or not, because they will understand it; after all, a Southerner wrote...
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...protagonists in Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, must endure this evolution with the help of their father. Atticus, an honest and righteous...
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...So far I have enjoyed the novel by Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, chapters 12-15 because the series of events are flowing in a suspenseful loop that forces the reader to continue to indulge into the text. One thought I had as I read chapter 12 is how Calpurnia was taught how to read by Ms. Buford and shared that information with Zeebo and taught him how to read while facing the tough circumstances she faced. As I continue to read, I have predicted that a situation will occur where Jem and Scout will finally be able to get Boo Radley to show his face and reveal his heavily hidden past. This event would have an interesting outcome because all of the rumors and assumptions of who Boo Radley once was will diminish. What surprised me most...
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...novel, the Crooked Letter and Harpers, To Kill a Mocking bird, each author explores the principle of moral and race. Each novel depicts the relationship between those who are white and those who are African American. However, both of these relationships were not common to their time periods of segregation and racism but instead friendships and kindness in a cruel world. Through The Crooked Letter and To Kill A Mockingbird, the evolving relationships between races exploit the coexistence of good and evil in the world. The presence of innocence and growth in each novel help illustrate the ever evolving relationships between white and blacks. Scout and Jem are still of youth in the beginning of the novel and are at a stage in which they see the world as all good and people are all in good faith. They are blind to the evil that even the adults they look up to can create. As their father, a lawyer, Atticus begins to defend a black man in his case; their youthful eyes are open up to the principle of racism for the first time. In Franklin’s novel, the crooked letter, the racism also begins at a young age. However, the protagonist Larry and Silas are aware that their friendship is odd and chose to keep it a secret. The principle of what is right and what is wrong despite race can both be demonstrated in each novel. Representation of a black man in a court room by a well known lawyer was completely unheard of. Through Harpers novel, a common theme of racial justice is shown throughout...
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...I am reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and I am on page 208. The book is about Scout, her brother Jem, and their friend Dill who are growing up learning about Boo Radley, Tom Robinson and segregation. I this journal I will be evaluating. The theme of the book is that there is usually more to a person then you first assume. One person who fits this theme is Calpurnia. At first in the book she acts and talks like white people because she is around white people. It would be strange if she acted like a black person would around them. Cal takes Scout and Jem to her church. Her church is only for black people. Cal does not talk or act like a white person because that would strange if she did. She starts acting and talking like a black person so that she fits in with them. Another person who fits this theme is Mrs. Dubose. At first, Scout and Jem think that she is a crabby old...
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