Discuss how the historical, political and social setting of Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird contributes to the fears that are present in Maycomb County. "Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself." (Scout Finch, Chapter 1, 'To Kill a Mockingbird'). 'To Kill A Mockingbird' is set in a small town in Maycomb County, Alabama, in the 1930s, which was a dark period in time for America as it had been hit by the Depression. Up until 1929, America had been doing very well, becoming a much richer country. However in 1929 when stocks had soared to an all time high, in September they plummeted. This day in history is known as Black Thursday and is remembered as the Wall Street Crash of '29. The crash hit people's interests hard and Americans all over lost a lot of money. Banks had to spend all of the money they had on regaining the economy, and agricultural needs were ignored, and didn't seem as important as other things like industry. Landowners had let out land to farmers to grow crops in, and when the Wall Street Crash hit them, they wanted to regain their land, as it was all they had. Therefore, the crash hit farmers the most and the Deep South was hit very badly because so many people were farmers by trade. There were many black people in the South of America, especially Alabama, and there was great racial hatred between them and the white communities. The Civil War from 1861-1865 between the North of America who wanted the abolition of slavery, and the South who wanted to keep slavery resulted in victory by the North, and slavery was later abolished. The South had lost its pride, and this was the reason for the racial hatred. Black people were thought to be inferior to white people and in the 1960s when the novel was written, black communities were rioting and causing disturbances to get across the point that they were not inferior to white people. After Abolition Black people were terrorised by the Ku Klux Klan, who would burn them, rape the women, and torture the children and the reader is shown an example of this in Chapter 15 where a group of white people, go to the county jail to terrorise Tom Robinson. Maybe this hatred for the Negroes wasn't hatred after all, but brought about by fear. As slavery had been abolished, black people were entitled to the same rights as white people, however they were still ostracised by white people because of their colour.
Because if the stock market crashing in 1929, many people sold their stocks and rushed to the banks to retrieve their money. Because of the faulty banking system, many banks failed. This led to the many people who have very little left. A significant thing is the unemployment and the homelessness of the people. In 1929, 3% of the people have unemployment while during the Great Depression, it was around 25% of the people. The farmers of Oklahoma and Kansas was struck the hardest when The Dust Bowl started. The huge dust storms changed the way people lived their lives more than the rest of the US. THe rural farmers in those states are forced to move inward toward the urban areas to escape the harsh conditions of the dust
... crashed and many people were left penniless and had to return to their jobs in order to survive.
not knowing which way to turn or who’s side to take, can put you under
To Kill a Mockingbird is a long time classic book. The writer has an interesting and unique way of capturing our attention. The storyline opens with the children, Jem, Scout and Dill , (a visiting child), daring each other to touch Boo Radley’s house. Boo Radley was a hermit that they were all afraid of. Atticus, the children’s father in his kind, gentle way, solves disagreements between his two children in the first chapter. Jem and Scout, brother and sister, love their father, but normally settle arguments with a fistfight.
To Kill A Mockingbird is a cultural and classic novel wrote by Harper Lee. A connection people believe is that the novel is based off of Harper Lee’s childhood. There are reasons to believe that there is a connection between the book and the author's life.
Courage is valued in many ways. It is measured by bravery, heroism, physical strength, and morally correct behavior. The world mostly defines courage as having physical strength and being brave. Atticus, Scout, and Jem show many acts of courage through the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. They all have different views and opinions on courage. The novel is told from the point of view of Scout. She, and her brother Jem, live with their widowed father in Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930’s. Their father, Atticus, is also a lawyer who defends his black client, Tom Robinson, who is innocent of rape. The title To Kill A Mockingbird explains that “it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” because they “make music for us to enjoy” (Lee 119). In other words, the mockingbirds are harmless and have never done anything wrong. It would be considered a sin to kill a harmless and peaceful mockingbird. Similarly, accusing an innocent and
Critical Review of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird is set during the 1930's in a small, isolated
This essay will focus on exploring the theme of prejudice in Harper Lee’s novel - ‘To kill a mockingbird’ , published in the four years after the renowned bus boycott of Montgomery, , it resonates with the feelings and attitudes prevalent at the time. A variety of different types of prejudice are exposed to us throughout the progression of the novel, arguably the most significant being racial and class prejudice. I shall focus my essay on exploring how these types of prejudice are explored in the novel.
The wall street crash was bad for every one in America at the time and
Nelle Harper Lee, the famous author of the worldwide bestseller To Kill a Mockingbird, was born April 28th, 1926, to Amasa Coleman (a lawyer) and Frances Lee. At the time, the family lived in Monroeville, Alabama. Harper’s family was somewhat wealthy, and they lived in upper middle class society most of their lives. Harper’s birth name, Nelle, was her grandmother’s spelled backwards (Ellen). However, in her publications, she took her middle name, Harper, to avoid being known as “Nellie”. But what numerous people have never heard - and many would be shocked to know - is that one windy, rainy night, Harper threw all her unpublished manuscripts of To Kill a Mockingbird out the window! Fortunately, she soon realized what she had done, and called over her editor, Tay Hohoff, to assist her. Hohoff sent her out in the snow and slush to retrieve her pages, which luckily had not fallen far away. But one would wonder: what would have happened if she had done the same on a slightly windier night?
In Harper Lee’s historical fiction novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus shows the children that Maycomb is prejudice, teaches them courage, and the children show maturity. Scout and Jem are children of Atticus who's assigned to defend Tom Robinson is his case and throughout this case Scout’s summer neighbor and friend, Dill, Jem, Atticus, and Scout exuberate of these themes in their actions .Prejudice is when one pre-judges another based on their race, gender, age, or sexuality which one don’t understand and one hates the unknown of another. Courage is doing something without the fear of being judged or fearing the unknown. Maturity is learning lessons and applying them to oneself where one start to display adult characteristics. These themes of courage, prejudice, and maturity come and go through the novel.
The author behind the influential and famous novel To Kill A Mockingbird is a woman by the name of Harper Lee. This ingenious woman made magic with only her inventive mind, creative imagination, past experiences and passion for kindness and equality. She was born and raised in a time of prejudice and racism but she always found a way to keep her goodness intact. She never let herself get corrupted or influenced by frivolous and uneducated people. Harper Lee’s influences as a child and views of society as an adult inspired her to fight against the world’s prejudice outlook on life by writing To Kill A Mockingbird, a novel that argues against society’s biased views toward racism.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a story about injustice, racism and the co-existence of good
It can be argued that Harper Lee was influenced based on the Scottsboro trial because both cases involved rape. They also both happen in Alabama and both cases had a white woman/women, black man/men asscused of rapeing these white girls. Another reason that Harper Lee was influenced based on the Scottsboro story, is that when Victoria Price and Mayella Ewell told their story, it was similar because how they were scared to answer the questions. They were nervous because they knew what they were saying was a lie. In both cases, these ladies was stopping in their sentences and looking around not saying anything for short breaks and catching attitudes with the plaintiff.
You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen. You know Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen. But do you recall the most famous reindeer of all? Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer was misperceived at first. All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names, but after he led Santa’s sleigh, they loved him. Misperceptions like this happen all throughout Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. As you read the novel you see original judgments made about characters transform into new conceptions and new understandings. Some characters twist your views of them on purpose, others do it involuntarily. To Kill a Mockingbird shows this happening over and over again. All you have to do is look for it.