The History Behind To Kill A Mockingbird 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. Scout Finch is the narrator in Lee’s work To Kill A Mockingbird, and the two share many similarities in real life. They both grew up in the 1930 in Alabama towns. Lee’s father was Amasa Lee “attorney who served in the state legislature in Alabama” (Johnson). Atticus Finch who is Scout’s father was also an attorney and served on the state legislature. They both had an older brother and a young neighbor playmate. Lee’s was Truman Capote and Scouts was Dill. When Lee was six years old one of the nations most notorious trials was taking place, the Scottsboro Trials. “On March 25, 1931, a freight train was stopped in Paint Rock, a tiny community in Northern Alabama, and nine young African American men who had been riding the rails were arrested” (Johnson). “Two white women on the train, 2 in an apparent effort to avoid prostitution charges, claimed that they had been raped by the black youths and these accusations nearly led to a lynching in Scottsboro, where the youths had been jailed” (Jones Ross). The trails and appeals of these youth gained national attention throughout the 1930’s and, at one point, all but one of the young men was sentenced to death in the Alabama electric chair. In To Kill A Mockingbird Lee tells the story of a Mr. Tom Robinson who is an African American who is being charged with rape against a white women. Atticus is the lawyer who must defend Robinson in court. In the Scottsboro case a central figure was a heroic judge who overturned a guilty verdict against the young men. The judge went against the public in trying to protect the rights of the African American men. In reading the novel you learn that Atticus arouses anger in the small community when he tries to defend Robinson.
“[T]here is one way in this country in which all men are created equal- there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller; the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court” (Lee 233). These are the words uttered by Atticus Finch, an important character in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus is a lawyer, and at this point in the novel, he is trying to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who was accused of raping a white woman. This reflects upon how society was in the 1930’s, when the color of your skin affected your chances of winning a trial. In fact, it is speculated that To Kill a Mockingbird is loosely based off of the trials of the Scottsboro Boys, a famous case from this time period. Most of the main characters associated with both trials share similar traits, experiences, and backgrounds.
On March 25, 1931 nine African American youths were falsely accused and wrongfully imprisoned for the rape of two white girls. Over the next six consecutive years, trials were held to attempt to prove the innocence of these nine young men. The court battles ranged from the U.S Supreme court to the Scottsboro county court with almost every decision the same---guilty. Finally, with the proceedings draining Alabama financially and politically, four of the boys ...
On March 25 1931 a group of nine boys were charged with raping two girls aboard a train traveling from Paint Rock Alabama across the state’s border. The trial of these boys had become collectively known as the Scottsboro case. Several years later Harper Lee wrote her famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird. In this story a young male Tom Robinson is charged with raping a white female. It is by understanding the parallel between Tom Robinson’s case in To Kill a Mockingbird and the Scottsboro case that can be understood that a fair trial was unlikely and that because of Tom Robinson’s race he was presumed guilty before his trial.
Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, Harper Lee's, To Kill a Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior, to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, and the struggle between blacks and whites. Atticus Finch, a lawyer and single parent in a small southern town in the 1930's, is appointed by the local judge to defend Tom Robinson, a black man, who is accused of raping a white woman. Friends and neighbors object when Atticus puts up a strong and spirited defense on behalf of the accused black man. Atticus renounces violence but stands up for what he believes in. He decides to defend Tom Robinson because if he did not, he would not only lose the respect of his children and the townspeople, but himself as well.
To fully appreciate and understand the symbolism in To Kill a Mockingbird, it is important to understand the time period in which Harper grew up as well as the characteristics of the mockingbird. The main character and narrator Scout Finch and Harper Lee are similar in many ways. Born in Monroeville, Alabama, on April 28, 1926, to Frances Cunningham Finch...
“I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks” (Lee 304). Harper Lee is the renowned author of To Kill a Mockingbird which was inspired by the real events of the Scottsboro Trials. Throughout her novel, Lee indirectly references the case by creating characters, events, and symbols that resemble and contrast the case. These elements allow the novel to emerge with a more realistic and historic plot. In particular, the similarities and differences between Judge Horton and Judge Taylor, Victoria and Mayella, and the atmosphere of the courtroom are most prevalent. By examining these components one will be able to respect the historical features present in Harper Lee’s fictional literary phenomenon, To Kill a Mockingbird.
To Kill The Mockingbird was about a black guy named Tom Robinson who was accused of raping a young women by the name of Mayella Ewell. In the court, significant evidence was presented to the juror's that would prove that Tom Robinson was innocent. The evidence showed that a left handed male must have beat Mayella because the bruises were on the right side of her and Tom Robinsons left arm was disabled. Robinson could not have beat Ms. Ewell. Tom Robinson was still convicted and later on was shot at a prison fence while he was trying to run away. The juror's discriminated Mr. Robinson and was prejudice towards him because all though evidence was presented to them that would prove Tom innocent they ignored it because the guy was black and in the 30's discriminating blacks were heavily favored.
A closer look at the ways of the South during the time period 1925 through 1935 reveals the accurate representation of society in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. Many of the fictional events occurring in the novel are closely related to actual historical events that took place in the South during the time period in which the book is set. Most importantly, the trial of Tom Robinson illustrates how life was for a black man in a world dominated by white men. Tom Robinson’s trial can be paralleled to the trials of the Scottsboro boys, the horrific lynching that occurred in the South, and the general attitude of white society towards black society during the time period. Historical evidence verifies that Tom Robinson is proven guilty before his trial ever begins.
Lee’s father was a very prominent figure in her life, one she often looked up to. She has confirmed that her dad was the inspiration for the protagonist of To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch (Finch was her father's nickname)(“Harper Lee”.) In the book, Atticus is portrayed as a wise and just father figure who always knows what is best to do. Her father was a lawyer just like Atticus in the book. Her father defended two black men accused of murder, very similarly to how Atticus defended Tom Robinson. Although H...
In the time around 1931, slavery had been abolished for almost seventy years, and many Black were living in society just like everyone else because they had the right to. Still, people didn’t treat them like they belonged, despite the government officially declaring it so. The majority of Whites made sure they had nothing to do with Blacks, for they might also face being disrespected or looked down upon. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, many outcomes may have resulted differently because of people of the town of Maycomb’s racism towards Black. Tom Robinson got an unfair white jury. Aunt Alexandra ended Scout and Jem’s going to church because it was a black church. People did not care how Tom was treated because he was “only a black.” The town turned against Atticus for defending a black man. Racism in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird affected the events by not giving black people as much chance of being taken for their word of innocence, which demonstrated not only an unjust legal system for persons of color, but an unfair system in other aspects of life as well.
During the years of the 1930’s, the Scottsboro Boys and Tom Robinson went to court due to an alleged rape of a white female. Throughout the events that took place in both cases, Harper Lee repeatedly presented examples of racism and prejudice. Between the court cases of both Tom Robinson and “The Scottsboro Boys,” many of the featured characters’ actions and reactions were similar in responding to the weak evidence.
In Harper Lee’s classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout recounts her childhood experiences growing up the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression. Scout lives with her widowed father, Atticus, a successful lawyer, and her older brother, Jem. Throughout the course of the novel, the characters matures and grow in different ways, primarily when Atticus takes the high profile case of defending Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white women. While this case causes numerous dilemmas for Jem and Scout, he is overall an admirable father.
The 1930’s were a time in which blacks faced many hardships. It was a time in which the Ku Klux Klan had its peak. However, most importantly, it was the time when Nelle Harper Lee, the writer of To Kill A Mockingbird, was being raised. She was raised in a world where “niggers'; were the bottom class in one of the most powerful countries in the world. She was also being raised during the Great Depression, a time when the attacks on blacks were intensified, as they were the scapegoats of the immense downfall of the US economy. However, she was only a small, innocent child who believed in equality for all. Thus, Harper Lee expressed her disapproval over the treatment of blacks in her Award-Winning novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, through the eyes of a fictional character called Jean Louise Finch, better known as “Scout';.
To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee's only novel, is a fictional story of racial oppression, set in Maycomb, A.L. in 1925 to 1935, loosely based on the events of the Scottsboro trials. Unlike the story however, the racial discrimination and oppression in the novel very accurately portrays what it was like in the 1920's and 1930's in the south. Tom Robinson, the black man accused of raping a poor low class white girl of 19, never stood a chance of getting a fair trial. This can be supported by giving examples of racially discriminatory and oppressive events that actually took place in the south during the time period in which the novel is based. In addition to actual historical events, events and examples from the book that clearly illustrate the overpoweringly high levels of prejudice that were intertwined in the everyday thinking of the majority of the characters in the book supports the fact that Tom Robinson never stood a chance of getting a fair trial.
Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama. She is the youngest of four children, which is why she says she has a knack for writing. She devoted her life to writing and even gave up other jobs that she loved like working for the airline company and going to college. Her first attempt at writing “To Kill a Mocking Bird” was declined by every publisher, because she only wrote a series of short stories. Upon revising the book, she made it into one of the best selling novels around. She was even congratulated by those publishers that said she would never be able to write books well enough. That was all the motivation that she needed.