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Gender Roles In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

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What Gender Roles May Come to Maycomb?
In the 1930’s Deep South, discrimination of many types, including sexism, is integrated into daily life in the tiny, tight-knit Alabama town of Maycomb. One of many expectations and roles that women were thought to be fit for during this time period was that many women were not expected to have office jobs, rather, staying home and baking, cooking, and cleaning. Scout’s community, which influences her greatly, includes her explicitly feminine aunt, Alexandra, her peers, including her older brother Jem, and her father, Atticus, who are both males. As a young girl, the narrator Scout Finch is beginning to realize that there are strict expectations for her because of her gender and limitations to what she …show more content…

In To Kill a Mockingbird, the author, Harper Lee, displays through the townspeople of Maycomb’s actions, words, and opinions women’s negative gender-based expectations and what their roles in society should be through the …show more content…

When asked by Scout why women cannot serve on juries, Atticus’s guess is that “‘it’s to protect our frail ladies from sordid cases like Tom’s. Besides,’ Atticus grinned, ‘I doubt if we’d ever get a complete case tried– the ladies’d be interrupting to ask questions’” (252). Atticus’s word choice displays exactly what he thinks women are, “frail”, meaning weak and delicate. In Atticus’s mind, these women are so weak that they cannot handle one “sordid” case. Atticus believes that women’s roles are not to be in the courthouse, because if they were, they would “be interrupting to ask questions.” The belief the reader can draw from the previous statement is that Atticus thinks women to not be intelligent or capable enough to understand complex scenarios. By saying these statements, Atticus is showing his reluctance to open his mind and realize that women can perform judicial and other duties as well as men. A second instance of gender roles is that a crime, according to the government, is “using abusive and profane language in the presence and hearing of a female” (11). By declaring that “profane” language, meaning swears, are not to be used around women, the

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14. In the courthouse, the colored section ran along the entire three walls of the courthouse, the jury sat to the left, under the long windows, the circuit solicitor and Atticus sat at the tables with the backs faced towards the children. The railing separated the spectators and the witnesses in the court; the witnesses sit with their backs toward Scout and Jem in cowhide bottom chairs, and Judge Taylor sat on the bench. It is significant where Scout and Jem sit because sitting in the colored section allowed them to see everything that was going on and it made them see the trail from a colored person’s perspective, where both races should be treated equally. By seeing the trial from a colored person’s perspective, they recall that life is

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Author Harper Lee, in her novel “To Kill A Mockingbird”, depicts a court trial in which Atticus Finch, a Maycomb County lawyer, attempts to defend an innocent black man, Tom Robinson, who was falsely accused of rape and beating by a young white woman, Mayella Ewell. Finch’s purpose is to prove Tom’s innocence to the court and avoid an inaccurate conviction. He adopts a deliberate tone in order to rule the jury’s speculation in favor of Robinsons guiltlessness. Atticus begins his argument by contrasting social moralities versus actual law.

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Atticus addresses this issue on his defending speech, "Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson 's skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you. You know the truth, and the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be trusted around women—black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men. There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire." (Chapter 20, page 208)

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The name of the novel being explored is 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee. To Kill a Mockingbird is set in the 1950's in Alabama Maycomb during the racist times towards the blacks. Throughout this topic the focus is on the main character/narrator Scout (Jan Louise Finch). This essay will explore Scout's character and the negative and or positive influence she has on other characters at the start, throughout and at the end of the text. At the beginning of the novel 'To kill a Mockingbird' Scout is a naïve, has a very tomboy like personality, is a judgmental five year-old girl who was oblivious to the cruelty's of the outside world.

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On the surface Maycomb County might seem like quiet, nice place to live, but deeper into the town hidden identities are discovered, courage is needed, and the maturation of characters is crucial to unearthing the truth about life in the 1930s. In Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, readers learn about a small town named Maycomb County and the struggles that occur within it. During the Great Depression and a peak of Southern racism, readers met the main character Scout. Scout, a girl ages six to nine, narrates this story for years and the happenings in the town. Years pass and different incidents arise including a court case about rape, a mean old neighbor, and the mysterious man next door.

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Scout’s peers had a very powerful emotional effect on her. " Scout, I'm tellin' you for the last time, shut your trap or go home—I declare to the Lord you're gettin' more like a girl every day!" With that, I had no option but to join them. - Scout in Chapter 6 of To Kill a Mockingbird. This quote is a great explanation of the judged stereotypes during this time period.

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Imagine one day you wake up and many of your constitutional rights, such as the right to vote, are gone. In Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Sexism plays a huge role in many scenarios throughout the story. For example, a quote in the novel states, “ ‘Scout, i’m tellin’ you for the last time to shut your trap or go home- I declare to the lord you’re gettin more like a girl every day.’ With that, I had no option but to join them.”(Lee

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Humans live in a world where moral values are very clearly set determining what is good and what is bad. We know what scares us and how racism should be treated. Nevertheless, this was not the case back in Alabama during the 1950s. In the famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee narrates the lives of the people of Maycomb, Alabama, focusing on the story of Scout and Jem Finch, and the case of a said to be rape. In this emotion filled narrative, readers learn how life was back then not only in general, but for the separate social statuses that there was.

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In the title of the book To Kill a Mockingbird, gender roles play a big part in the time that the book was written. There are many examples of people being told what they could and couldn’t do based on their gender, and insults thrown around that are gender-based. One example of gender roles in the book are Jem’s comments on Scout’s behavior, especially when Jem and Dill are about to break into the radley’s. As they are discussing it, and Scout comes up and starts pestering them about what they are doing, Jem remarks that Scout is “gettin’ more like a girl every day!” pg.

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In the book, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee, the author writes about what happens in the small southern town of Maycomb, in Alabama. Lee uses the influence of belief in traditions such as roles and family bonds to show that they are causes of conflict. Throughout the book, roles such as gender, age, race, and family confines characters to act, look, and even speak certain ways, causing internal, external, and family conflicts. This theme that different types of roles and family bonds are the root of conflict is developed through the use of physical setting, anti stereotype, and historical setting The author shows that Scout faces external conflicts caused by the pressure to fit into the stereotypical gender roles accustomed to girls at this time in history.

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Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird famously said in his closing arguments: "You know the truth, and the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some negro men are not to be trusted around women- black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and no particular race of men." (pg 232) What Atticus is trying to convey is a foreign concept to most people in Maycomb county. Atticus is trying to convey a point of equality and no prejudice in a world of social inequality which, as one can imagine, didn 't go over so well.

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Breaking Social Norms In To Kill A Mockingbird In To Kill A Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, Lee depicts the main character Scout Finch as the primary feminist who defies social norms despite several influences in Maycomb County. Scout displays her feminist qualities throughout several occurrences in the novel. She continues to stay true to herself and fights for how she desires to act, while occasionally experimenting with her femininity.

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Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, illustrates how women are restricted by societal expectations. Women and girls are expected to act a certain way, to be feminine and docile. After an argument between Jem and Scout, Jem goes as far to shout, “‘It’s time you started bein’ a girl and acting right!’” (Lee, 153). Jem believes that Scout should be cooperative and malleable to be a typical girl.

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In Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird”, the issue of Southern Womanhood is brought up many times throughout the novel. Lee uses many different characters to help show how she viewed Southern Womanhood. Specifically she uses, Scout, Mayella Ewell, and Scout’s Aunt Alexandra. In "To Kill A Mockingbird", Harper Lee uses specific characters to show how negative of an impact Southern Womanhood used to have. Harper Lee uses Scout in many cases to show how she thought Southern Womanhood used to have a negative impact.

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