Growing up is fun until you realize how racist and cruel your society is. In the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, Scout experiences many changes in Maycomb as she grows. She loses her innocence, learns about the people of Maycomb, learns influencing lessons from Atticus and the amount of prejudice and intolerance that’s in her community. Although she may have been innocent in the beginning, Scout began to understand society and the truths and lies of Maycomb as she grew.
History has proven that many ancient civilizations have existed before the Europeans and Native Americans, including the ancient Nubian and Incan civilizations. Although they are not explored as deeply as European history is, these ancient societies were, and still are, influential in world history. Two of these kingdoms – Nubia and the Inka Empire – are similar in their role to the development of their kingdom, yet they functioned in different ways to affect the individual continents in which they were located. The Nubian and Incan empires had many similarities as they were both important; one of the many including how they left their history behind – through sculpture and storytelling. Another important similarity was that both kingdoms worshiped gods and practiced ancestor worship.
In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout and Jem grow up and learn, over a couple years, that the world is not as forgiving as it once seemed. Men are condemned based on the color of their skin and children are attacked in means of revenge. Bob Ewell accuses Tom Robinson of raping his daughter, when Mayella Ewell was actually beaten by her father. Lies build up and stereotypes grow.
As the novel progresses, Jem becomes less defiant and more understanding of adults. Jem witnesses the physical and moral courage of his father before and during the trial of
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird shows how Jem, Scout and Boo overcome their loss of innocence and overcome the struggles that Maycomb county and its people throw at them. While Jem, Scout, are just rudimentary kids they face some real world problems and they witness some of the harsh ways people did things but witnessing those things and hearing all the judgemental people is also a detriment to their innocence.
Jem grows up sheltered from the evil in the world. Once the trial comes around, however, he learns out imperfect the world is through the racism and prejudice, and he struggles to come to terms with this realization. After the trial he tells Miss Maudie, who is their neighbor, how it feels like “bein’ a caterpillar in a cocoon… Like somethin’ asleep wrapped up in a warm place. I always thought Maycomb folks were the best folks in the world least that’s what they seemed like” (Lee 288). Miss Maudie then tries to comfort Jem, but it still shows that Jem has been changed because his childhood view of Maycomb being perfect has been shattered.
The novel To Kill a Mockingbird teaches many good lessons about people. In this book, Jem and Scout are able to witness everyday situations in which people are not treated the same or do not have the same way of life. The children get to see and understand the Tom Robinson trial. They also see how other people lives are different from theirs, including the lives of the Cunningham’s, the Ewell’s, Tom Robinson, and Boo Radley. The children are also able to make their own opinions about most of the situations that they see.
Alabama in the 1930s was full of racism and prejudice. Harper Lee uses her book To Kill a Mockingbird to express the problems and bring them into the minds of ordinary people. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses mockingbirds to represent innocence, the Radley Place to represent mystery, fear, and understanding, and the sick dog to represent the illness of society. In To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee uses the mockingbird to represent innocence.
To Kill A Mockingbird is an award winning novel written by Harper Lee that tells the story of Maycomb county and the Tom Robinson trial through the eyes of six-year-old Scout. Scout and her older brother Jem don’t understand the social rules of the time period and are both confused as to why the people of the world couldn’t get along. Their unusually strong sense of justice may come from their father Atticus—the lawyer of Tom Robinson. Atticus had taught Scout and Jem that they were no better than anyone else. Atticus proved his justice when Scout asked about the ways of different people saying, ““First of all, if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks.
"To Kill a Mockingbird," by Harper Lee is a novel surrounding the people of Maycomb County, all of them having contrasting opinions and views. The story is told through the protagonist, Scout's perspective as she goes through her daily events while witnessing the prejudice among her own society. Prejudice is a preconceived opinion of a person based on stereotypes without real facts and discriminating them based on race, social class, and gender. In this novel, Lee explores the human nature of prejudice and the various types present in Maycomb. There are several types of prejudice, but Lee focuses on three types throughout the novel.
In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee argues that Scout’s community of Maycomb, Alabama is not all good that there is discrimination, unfairness, and even evil because of the time period which was during the depression. “To kill a mockingbird” is to destroy innocence. In the novel Jem, Tom Robinson, Dill, Boo Radley, Mr. Raymond can be identified as mockingbirds, innocent people who have been injured or destroyed through contact with evil. In the novel there are three young kids that are protected and has never truly experienced the evil of the world. In their neighborhood they get to know their community more and start to realize and see the good in people and the evil.
It is a common belief among humankind that we have the ability to think rationally. Additionally, factors such as bias, memory, judgement, and personal psychology demonstrate the nonsensical sides to our mind and behavior. Our perception of humanity promotes the inequality of different races, classes, and ages, which proves the statement: “It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this” (Russell.) Ironically, people have a bias against humanity and its rationale, considering the fact that we are all human.
People are capable of forming their impression of someone within ten seconds of meeting them. This can begin to form prejudice; an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Another factor that can influence a person’s opinion towards another is the views of their society. Atticus says, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view--until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (22). This quote how unfair and unjust prejudice is without solid facts to base your opinion on.
Literature contains many hidden themes and references about the struggles and plights humans encountered throughout the eras. Harper Lee wrote the well-recognized novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which focuses on the societal norms of the United States' South during the 1930s. Now considered a "classic of American literature" (Sutton) for Lee's "gift of storytelling" (Dave), which influenced the American citizens' consciences and culture (Sutton), even ranking second to the Bible for "making a difference in people's lives" in a 1991 survey by the Book of the Month Club (Sutton) and winning a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, To Kill a Mockingbird questions the ethics of the 1930s South and calls out the South's approval and tolerance of racism and discrimination.
Children go to school to gain knowledge, but life can give children the most important education. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem, and Scout are two growing children navigating life in the 1930’s in racist Alabama. They see racism throughout their town and have to navigate how they want to live their lives or follow their town. In their own school, they see racist people, and they often question what they hear, see, and learn.
