At the beginning of the novel, Scout is an innocent, good-hearted
five-year-old child who has no experience with the evils of the world.
As the novel progresses, Scout has her first contact with evil in the
form of racial prejudice, and the basic development of her character
is governed by the question of whether she will emerge from that
contact with her conscience and optimism intact or whether she will be
bruised, hurt, or destroyed like Boo Radley and Tom Robinson. Thanks
to Atticus's wisdom, Scout learns that though humanity has a great
capacity for evil, it also has a great capacity for good, and that the
evil can often be mitigated if one approaches others with an outlook
of sympathy and understanding.
When he agrees to defend Tom Robinson, a black man charged with raping
a white woman, he exposes himself and his family to the anger of the
white community.
Arthur "Boo" Radley - A recluse who never sets foot outside his house,
Boo dominates the imaginations of Jem, Scout, and Dill. He is a
powerful symbol of goodness swathed in an initial shroud of
creepiness, leaving little presents for Scout and Jem and emerging at
an opportune moment to save the children. An intelligent child
emotionally damaged by his cruel father, Boo provides an example of
the threat that evil poses to innocence and goodness. He is one of the
novel's "mockingbirds," a good person injured by the evil of mankind.
Bob Ewell - A drunken, permanently unemployed member of Maycomb's
poorest family. In his knowingly wrongful accusation that Tom Robinson
raped his daughter, Ewell represents the dark side of the South:
ignorance, poverty, squalor, and hate-filled racial prejudice.
One of the book's important subthemes involves the threat that hatred,
prejudice, and ignorance pose to the innocent: people such as Tom
Robinson and Boo Radley are not prepared for the evil that they
encounter, and, as a result, they are destroyed.
The relatively well-off Finches stand near the top of Maycomb's social
hierarchy, with most of the townspeople beneath them. Ignorant country
farmers like the Cunninghams lie below the townspeople, and the white
trash Ewells rest below the Cunninghams. But the black community in
Maycomb, despite its abundance of admirable qualities, squats below
even the Ewells, enabling Bob Ewell to make up for his own lack of
importance by persecuting Tom Robinson. These rigid social divisions
that make up so much of the adult world are revealed in the book to be
both irrational and destructive.
Mockingbird - The title of To Kill a Mockingbird has very little
literal connection to the plot, but it carries a great deal of
who aren't actually writing the book. This book is actually a good reason that there
that is exactly what the reader is faced with themes about human nature, life and God “The
Other species. Different people. Different others. Something that I almost missed while reading this book was the theme of diversity. Diversity in looks, thoughts, and mainly opinions. The Taker and Leaver culture was presented to guide humans to the right way, yet it did much more than that. The two different cultures were brought out because they were basically different. If I were to press the button and go back to pre revolutionary times, would I ever have met man when he wasn’t in control? The Taker culture wouldn’t have existed and I wouldn’t have a button to press. These different perspectives of how to live are defined by the laws of nature. For example, in chapter 10, when the narrator was explaining the myths of his people, he got onto the topic of Hammurabi’s laws. “And Hammurabi says, ‘Laws are things that tell you the one right way to live” (Quinn
The authors do eventually (pg. 205) acknowledge that some may see the book as trying to enrage the public just to sell books. In fact, Ron Levy, P...
Each character’s personality in the book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is intricately described, therefore giving the reader an image or idea of the kind of person he or she is. A picture of the character is formed in the mind with maybe rough edges but a soft heart on the inside. A character’s personality may be oversimplified by drawing shapes in symbolism, but the shapes may be helpful in perceiving the general extent of the characteristics. With a little help from Lee’s descriptions, I have been able to form images in my mind (and draw them on paper) of the personalities of Scout, Jem, Atticus, Dil, Calpurnia, Boo Radley, and Bob Ewell.
how children live in a world of their own. Adults try to get into this
Mood helps in creating an atmosphere in a literary work by means of setting, theme, diction and tone. Throughout the book To kill a mockingbird the author wanted the mood to be sorrowful or vexed or just fret about how the people are acting because seeing how things were being treated or how people acted would be enough to make you feel angry or sad or worried for the people who were in the book. You always wanted to know what was going to come next or how something would end. Vex was a very prominent mood in this story and is definitely the most relevant.
In the opening chapters of “To Kill A Mockingbird,” Harper Lee introduces several subtle instances of racism. However, when Jem and Scout are welcomed into Cal’s Church in chapter 12, the reader really gets to travel behind the false disguise of Maycomb County’s white society to see the harsh realities of the injustices suffered by the blacks. The black community is completely separate from the whites -- in fact, Cal lives in a totally different part of town!
Nelle Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird has been considered one of the classic works of American literature. To Kill A Mockingbird is the work ever published by Nelle Harper Lee, and it brought her great fame. However, Nelle Harper Lee has published several other articles in popular magazines. Nelle Harper Lee is not an individual who desires to be in the light and little is known about her personal life. At the time it is believed she is possible working on her memoirs. The fictional work of To Kill A Mockingbird plots many elements close to real events in America’s struggle over civil rights.
From the start of the book we can see that women in the book are
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee seems like a complete replica of the lives of people living in a small Southern U.S. town. The themes expressed in this novel are as relevant today as when this novel was written, and also the most significant literary devices used by Lee. The novel brings forward many important themes, such as the importance of education, recognition of inner courage, and the misfortunes of prejudice. This novel was written in the 1930s. This was the period of the “Great Depression” when it was very common to see people without jobs, homes and food. In those days, the rivalry between the whites and the blacks deepened even more due to the competition for the few available jobs. A very famous court case at that time was the Scottsboro trials. These trials were based on the accusation against nine black men for raping two white women. These trials began on March 25, 1931. The Scottsboro trials were very similar to Tom Robinson’s trial. The similarities include the time factor and also the fact that in both cases, white women accused black men.
Scout learned a number of things in the book, but most of them all refer back to a statement that Atticus and Calpurnia said, which goes, “It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird because all they do is sing their hearts our for us.” (Lee, pg. 90). Scout learned that about people, too. She learned that some people don’t do anything to you, so it would be a sin to do something mean in return. Over the course of the story Scout becomes more mature and learns the most important facts of life. She was living through a very difficult time and most of that helped her get through.
The book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee contain a very engaging family who are the Cunninghams. The Cunninghams are very poor; they are people who live in the woods. They are a family who depend highly on crops. Walter Cunningham, the 'father' of the family has to work hard on the cultivation of crops because crops is the only form of wages for them. The Cunninghams have no money. Their only way to survive is through paying others with their crops. The Cunninghams are not main characters in the book, but they are characters who 'brought out' other characters' personality. Harper Lee displays that there is a lot of prejudice going on in Maycomb by putting the Cunninghams in the book. "The Cunninghams [were] country folks, farmers"(21) who are very honest people in Maycomb, they "never took anything they [could not] pay back"(23), but they are unfairly mistreated by part of the society in Maycomb.
Scout Finch is not the stereotypical girl from the 1930’s. Agents the wishes of everyone around her, she grows up in overalls instead of dresses. Scout plays in the dirt and sand, instead of in the kitchen. In the novel To Kill a Mocking Bird, by Harper Lee, Scout is the wild spirited narrator, growing up in the small town of Maycomb. As she gets older, she learns mostly from her father Atticus how to interact with people. Scout learns to show dignity and respect to everyone, under any circumstances.
1. In the book, Bromden tells how society is a Combine and shows all his inner thoughts.