Critical Review of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird

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Critical Review of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird is set during the 1930's in a small, isolated town in Maycomb County, Alabama. The 1930's was a period of great change with new ideas coming to the forefront of the Western world. America was fast becoming one of the most powerful countries in the world and therefore its ideas and ways of living were being copied in every far corner of the western world. Economically America was not quite so sound. Only a year earlier America had sustained a massive crash in share prices that had affected the whole nation from the richest to the poorest everybody was facing bankruptcy and poverty. In the early 1930's racism was a large factor in the way that everyone lived their lives. A true reflection of this came on March 25th 1931; it was the day of a trial of nine black teenagers who were accused of the alleged rape of two young white women; Ruby Bates and Victoria Price. It took place in a small, isolated town (much like the one in Maycomb County) in Scottsboro, Ala. The trial was significant because it was the sign of recognition from the white population that racism was not right. Eight of the boys were sentenced to death while another was sentenced to life imprisonment. The nine black teenagers were tried in conjunction with the Jim Crow Laws. The Jim Crow Laws were legal punishments on people consorting with members of another race. The most common laws ... ... middle of paper ... ...harms anyone. Despite this both the mockingbird and Boo are persecuted, the mockingbird by keen shooters and Boo by the town gossipers. This novel has an amazing analytical interpretation of how life was for people in the 1930's. Not only does it give a wonderful insight onto the way young children lived their lives and how they learnt and developed intellectually in 1930's but it also gives a wonderful insight into many different worlds and the different life's people led in the 1930's. There are so many different ways to interpret this novel that is surely one of the best in all history. The novel is relevant even to day, as we look at how the children in our society learn and who influences them. The idea of a mockingbird and Atticus's idea of wearing another mans skin are still so relevant today it amazes me.

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