![]() Atticus is appointed to defend him and he agrees to move forward in representing Robinson as a client. Tom Robinson, a black man who lives on the outskirts of town, is wrongfully accused of raping a white woman (the lonely Mayella Ewell). ![]() It’s a gesture of much warmth but Radley never introduces himself to them in any way.Ī major plot point of the novel revolves around the fact segregation is alive and well in this part of the south and racism is still normalized to a certain extent. Eventually the children come to find that someone has been leaving them candy in the concave part of a tree outside the Radley house. No one has seen him in years and the children enjoy getting cheap thrills by daring one another to touch his house and enjoy speculating if he looks like some sort of monster, imagining all sort of antic to get him out of the house. One of the activities that the children engage in is speculating about Boo Radley, a shut-in down the street. Their mother died when they were quite young, and Atticus very much embodies the archetype of the heroic single parent.ĭuring the start of the book, Jem and Scout have taken to hanging out with a young boy named Dill, who visits the town each summer to stay with his aunt. Scout lives with her older brother Jeremy (Jem) and her father Atticus, and a woman who cooks for them named Calpurnia. The book opens with the reader being immediately introduced to Scout’s life and family situation as she lives in Maycomb, Alabama-a fictional but quiet town in the deep South. The book concerns three years from 1933-1935, when Scout, the narrator was six years old. The book is a retrospective of a slice of the childhood of Jean Louise Finch (Scout) told in the first person. Harper Lee makes all of these experiences memorable and engaging through her nuanced characters and the challenges they have to face. Yet, this places the reader into a position of inherent vulnerability as we confront some of the most difficult issues of the era-from classism to racism to justice and human responsibility. In many ways, it is as if every reader is another child of Atticus Finch. This dynamic forces the reader to view them from a fresher perspective. Being forced to view the complexity of so many of these social and philosophical issues through the eyes of child is transformative. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the reader is put into the capable hands of the six-year-old narrator Scout. Given the heaviness of so many of the themes, it’s no wonder that the novel is an indelible part of so many high school curriculums. Rather, the novel explores lofty and complex ideologies such as justice, morality, equality, human dignity and compassion. This novel is so much more than just a slice of life for Southern America in the 1930s. Exploring this novel means being prepared to confront some of the darker days of American history, such as the extreme racism of the Jim Crow era and the economic despondency of the Great Depression. Writing a To Kill a Mockingbird essay forces the student to examine one of the most revered works of 20th century American literature. Compare and contrast the film and the novel.The novel is not a mirror image of Harper Lee’s childhood, but explain how her actual youth probably had an influence on the creation of the story.Critics have described Atticus Finch as overly optimistic.Dill Harris is an intriguing supporting character as he represents a melee of so many of the people and circumstances around him.Discuss the parallelisms between Jem Finch and Tom Robinson.Discuss the parallelisms between Boo Radley and Tom Robinson.Discuss the problems inherent in this situation that will ensure he won’t receive a fair trial. Tom Robinson is a black man charged with rape of a white woman, tried by a white jury.Discuss how the economic stresses of the time added to social tensions in To Kill a Mockingbird.Discuss how this was demonstrated in the novel. Ferguson was a landmark case for maintaining segregation and inequality for blacks. ![]()
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