Critical Review of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird

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 ...

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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.