More handpicked essays just for you.
To kill a mockingbird gender analysis
To kill a mockingbird gender analysis
How women are oppressed by female writers in literature
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
It’s 2016 and women still face oppressive gender standards from society. Although Harper Lee’s story, To Kill a Mockingbird, is set in the 1930’s, the novel touches on topics relevant in today’s society, such as women’s oppression. The narrator, Scout Finch, is a spunky tomboy who grew up in a small town in Alabama. Scout’s mother died when Scout was young, so Scout was raised primarily her father, Atticus, and her aunt, Alexandra. This left Scout with sparse feminine influence when Scout was young, aside from Aunt Alexandra. Lee uses Aunt Alexandra’s character, Scout’s tomboy-ish life style, and the idea of being a proper lady to reflect the social pressures women face to fulfill society’s standards. Lee uses Aunt Alexandra’s harsh notions of proper feminity in order to mirror the negative messages given to girls by society. Alexandra repeatedly insists that Scout behaves like a proper lady, regarding Scout's clothing choices and Scout's role at home. Scout stated …show more content…
For example, one of Scout’s elderly neighbors shouts at Scout one day and says “What are you doing in those overalls? You should be in a dress and camisole, young lady!” (Lee 85) which demonstrates how the pressure to be a lady is forced onto girls regardless of how young the girl is. This statement and numerous others leave Scout with the unwanted burden of attempting to be a proper lady. This internal conflict within Scout is shown when she replies that she wants to be “just a lady,” (Lee 196) after being asked about what Scout wants to be when she’s older. Through this, the idea of being a proper lady is shown to place a heavy and unwanted concern on young girls. Therefore, the toxic obligation put on young girls to be a proper young lady is narrowing the choices girls make, extending as far as making being a lady the only goal girls hope to accomplish in
Scout, the protagonist, is a young girl coming of age in a society trying to shove her into a dress and the role of a gilded daughter. For example, when Scout recalls a conversation with her Aunt Alexandra, a figurehead for society and one of the major female figures in her life, she begins to shine her own light on how to brighten her father’s life in a way that is true to herself. On page 108, Scout comes to terms with the fact that she is defying stereotypes, “I could not possibly be a lady if I wore breeches; when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn’t supposed to be doing things that required pants. Aunt Alexandra’s vision of my deportment involved playing with small stoves, tea sets, and wearing the Add-A-Pearl necklace she gave me when I was born; furthermore, I should be a ray of sunshine in my father’s lonely life. I suggested that one could be a ray of sunshine in pants just as well, but Aunty said that one had to behave like a sunbeam, that I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year. She hurt my feelings and set my teeth permanently on edge,
Most girls that grew up in the time that Scout did would be wearing dresses and acting in a more feminine manner. Some of this can be credited to Atticus’s hands-off parenting style, which doesn’t push Scout towards stereotypical gender roles. Scout seems to represent a very early and mild form of feminism in the south. When problems arise in the book, she often questions or examines them as a personal responsibility and seeks a resolution. This is a key difference because in feminist ethics, men often view something right or wrong instead of seeking a resolution.
While the women in Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird come in a variety of personalities and backgrounds, all of their lives are led by one constricting factor; their gender. Scout's upbringing as a young woman greatly contrasts that of her brother Jem. Jem is educated as a young boy growing into a man while Scout’s journey is taken as a woman. The manacle of womanhood is but a concept if one does not consider the harsh faults and inhibiting limits of men or rather the struggle for “masculinity” that men are similarly constrained. Though she is repeatedly told to have ladylike manners and to dress in more feminine way, Scout mostly denies this norm but is still able to become a young
In the story, Scout describes how Aunt Alexandra exhibits dominance over Scout’s wardrobe, and even berating her for wearing clothes that Alexandra sees fit. In the novel, Lee writes: “Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire. I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches; when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn’t supposed to be doing things that required pants. Aunt Alexandra’s vision of my deportment involved playing with small stoves, tea sets, and wearing the Add-A-Pearl necklace she gave me when I was born; furthermore, I should be a ray of sunshine in my father’s lonely life.” (Lee, 81). This piece of evidence shows how Scout feels she should be able to wear whatever she sees fit, but Aunt Alexandra insists that she is not a proper lady if she doesn’t act and wear whatever defines the characteristics of a “lady” in her perception, serving as an insult to her, which implies that she doesn’t act as her gender stereotypically should. This piece of evidence is only one of the plentiful examples of prejudice and discrimination in To Kill A
In most countries, women only earn between 60 and 75% of men’s wages, for the same work. Sexism is still a problem in today’s society, but it has improved since Scout’s generation in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Scout believes from an early age that girls aren’t good, and that she can avoid the judgement that comes with being a girl by not acting like one. Being a girl for Scout is less a matter of what she's born with and more a matter of what she does. Scout’s elders influence her perception of womanhood by putting preconceived sexist views in her head. In “To Kill a Mockingbird” Harper Lee shows the reader how all women are expected to act lady like and be proper through the actions of Mrs. Dubose, Jem, and Atticus.
Gender roles in society have greatly changed throughout the years of America. From puritan women who thought that showing skin was undoubtedly a sin, to the flapper era in American history that welcomed the idea of women showing more of their sexuality. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which depicts the events that occur when a white man defends an African American man during the era of the Great Depression and what results from the story. Gender roles are a prevalent theme in the story. Through the characters dialogue and Scout's narration, Miss Maudie is characterized as a modern women while aunt Alexandra is characterized by her adherence to tradition.
Sexism is not as common a topic in comparison to racism, but does play a role in the development of the novel. This type of discrimination is expressed towards women from men and women alike. Men feel compelled to protect women from unsightly things, (Lee 221), and the women in Maycomb have the mind set that, to be a lady, they must conform to society's expectations of them. They believe they must dress, act, and speak a certain way to appease the community. Aunt Alexandra is a big believer in acting the way society expects her to and attempts to impose these values on her niece, Scout, who becomes mortified, as she has always been a tomboy and prefers spending time in the dirt. “Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my [Scout's] attire. She said I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches; when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn't supposed ...
Even though many social forces impact Scout in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, gender impacts Scout the greatest. It affects her in how other people treat her. Unexpectedly, Aunt Alexandra shows up at the Finch household, and Scout asks why she had just shown up. Aunt Alexandra replies, “We decided that it would be good for you to have some feminine influence. It won’t be many years, Jean Louise, before you become interested in clothes and boys” (127). After Alexandra says this, Scout becomes puzzled because she does not think she needs a “feminine influence”. But, as she becomes older she is expected to act more lady like. Since she is a girl, she is expected to act prim and proper. Her being raised around men is acting against these stereotypes. Certainly, it is obvious that boys are more daring than girls. So while Jem and Dill want to get a sneak peak inside of Boo Radley’s house, Scout gets a little apprehensive. Jem shouts out, “Scout I’m telling you for the last time shut your trap or go home. I declare to the lord you’re getting more like a girl every day,” (51-52). After Jem said this, she decides she has no option but to join them. She does...
Scout wears overalls and wants to play with and help her brother and her guy best friend. She despises dresses and wants to fit in with the guys. Alexandra shames her for this because she, “needs to act more like a lady,” which Scout could care less about at the age of nine. There is also a speech called “Ain’t I a Woman?” which is about a woman that is trying to stand up for her rights.
As a growing young girl, Scout was learning and experiencing things just like any other child would though growing up. She got older and was able to understand things a lot better as well as being able to apply lessons she had learned in her everyday life. She began to act slightly more grown up in situations such as Aunt Alexandria's dinner party. Scout forgot how much she despised her Aunt and how much she disliked dresses and joined the group of women in their conversations. Despite how she didn't want to "act more like a lady", she played along with her Aunt's "campaign to teach me (Scout) to be a lady" made an exception to please her Aunt and to create some peace between them. Upon hearing the news of Tom's death she concludes "if Aunty could be a lady at a time like this, so could I." This shows how Scout was beginning to act more ladylike for her Aunt.
In Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight, M.E. Thomas said, “When you grow up as a girl, it is like there are faint chalk lines traced approximately three inches around your entire body at all times, drawn by society and often religion and family and particularly other women, who somehow feel invested in how you behave, as if your actions reflect directly on all womanhood.” The feeling described in the quote if a perfect representation of how most women felt in the 1930s. Some women living in the 1930s felt pressured to act ladylike, however, over time the expectations and roles of women improved. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, roles and treatment of the female characters, who were women in the 1930s
The book To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee elaborates on Feminism. Based on the idea feminism, there are several instances where Lee shows someone changing their opinion or actions to satisfy someone. Nelle Harper Lee was born in 1920's and related herself to the central character of the book, Scout. She had experienced many horrors in where she had to question what was right and what was wrong and she put in all of her experiences into a book which won the Pulitzer Prize. An examination of Feminism and a touch of Classism, in To Kill a Mockingbird, revealed that no matter the class or gender, people have strived to change themselves to satisfy others, for the good of many, or to prove themselves to others and this can be proven through
When the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, was written by Harper Lee, the Southern United States was still clinging tightly to traditional values. Southern societies pressured men to behave as gentlemen, and women were expected to be polite and wear dresses. These stringent gender roles were adhered to in small southern towns because they were isolated from the more progressive attitudes in other areas of the United States. Harper Lee documents the life of one young girl growing up in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. Jean Louise Finch, also known as "Scout," is a young girl searching for her identity. Scout, a young tomboy, is pressured by adults who insist she should conform to the traditional role of a southern lady. Harper Lee establishes and promotes Jean’s masculinity through the use of nicknames, fighting, and masculine clothing, while contrasting her with women that fit the stereotypical female model.
How is the relationship between men and women portrayed? Men are shown as wanting women and needing to win the women over for marriage. FOr example, Emily is seen as stuck up since, “None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily” (Faulkner 2).
Later, when Aunt Alexandra came to live with them for a while, some of the first things she said were, “We decided that it would be best for you to have some feminine influence. It won’t be many years before, Jean Louise, before you become interested in clothes and boys--”(Lee 170). We can all see now that both sexes, male and female, at all ages know the basic ways of how women are ‘suppose’ to act, even though they might not want to. Scout, and other young girls, most likely, don’t want to grow up; young people deserve to have fun while they still have their young minds and bodies. The problem for how women are expected to act, and how they are