To Kill a Mockingbird : Historical Paper
The Great Depression was a time of great change in the United States but the discriminatory ways of society still remained. In Harper Lee’s classic American novel To Kill a Mockingbird there are many references to many of the real-life events of the 1930s. Lee’s novel was influenced by the Jim Crow laws and mob mentality. The first influence on Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird are the Jim Crow Laws. The Jim Crow laws are a disgusting set of rules. The Jim Crow laws had the goal of keeping white people separate from black people(Pilgrim 1). They thought they needed the rules because they believed that white people are supreme to black people in every way(Pilgrim 2). This belief founded their need
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Mob mentality is a bizarre and often violent phenomenon. Mob mentality is when people in a group exhibit unique behavior as a whole group(Smith). People would participate in mob mentality because they would be in a group when confusion occurred, inducing the mob mentality mindset. People would also join in on the mobs because they felt less guilty commiting a crime with many other people around. Often times the behaviors would involve people coming from miles around to have a fun time in the mob, while partaking in autrious activities like lynching(“Strange Fruit: Anniversary of a Lynching”). Many of these people truly did not realize what they were really doing and only committed these crimes because of the mob mentality taking over. Mob mentality makes subtle appearances throughout Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. One example of mob mentality given by Smith’s article is that when there are many people coming together, they just follow the crowd and usually become violent while not realizing it(Smith). This example can be applied to many different situations in mob mentality from lynch mobs to people flocking towards a famous person. This is shown in To Kill a Mockingbird when the mob comes to the jail to attack Tom Robinson(Lee 172). When Scout started talking to the mob, she broke Mr. Cunningham out of the mob mentality mindset and made him realize what he was about to do was wrong. Both mob