In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee the first influence is on the Jim Crow laws. There were many laws that the black people were required to follow. The Jim Crow laws were a way of life back then for Black and White people. In the article Jim Crow laws they stated that “Many Christian ministers and
The Great Depression was the time period in which Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was set and was a time of economic instability and unpredictability (McCabe 12). Lee used many historical events and influences in her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. In the book, there are direct links to the Jim Crow laws, mob mentality, and the Scottsboro trials. The first influence on Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is the Jim Crow laws.
During the Great Depression, people and families were struggling to get by. Unemployment was at an all time high and poverty struck many Americans. Martha Gellhorn traveled to North Carolina and documented the effect the Great Depression was having on families. She wrote, “it seems like people were degenerating before your eyes” and “ The price of food has risen, it’s getting cold and they have no clothes”(Gellhorn 166). The American people needed help and the New Deal was like a helping hand guiding them back on track.
In the 1930s, there were many conflicts because African Americans were always the ones to get blamed by the prejudicial people who lived in Alabama. When the Scottsboro case was happening, Harper Lee was six years old. So thirty years later, she had written a book based on the Scottsboro case. Nine black men had been accused of rape by a white woman, and in To Kill a Mockingbird, there was one black man who had been accused of rape by a white woman. Harper Lee was inspired by the Scottsboro Boys’ case when writing her novel due to the similarities between them.
Those decades shared a major subject, inequality. Harper Lee decided to acknowledge the inequality in her novel To Kill A Mockingbird. She wrote the story with setting in the 1930s but opinions from the 1960s. Raised in a town that held tight to their 1930s opinions during the 1960s, she decided to write what she knew. She showed the inequality in problems such as economy, race, and women.
(Lee, 224) In conclusion, throughout her book To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee shows us how life really was at that time. Racism was causing people to think badly of others that were different from them. She experienced segregation that divided people. She also showed us that we can overcome these things by including a character like Atticus.
Rosa Parks once said, “Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome”. Many instances within the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” relate to the topic of racism and how it is introduced to children. During the Great Depression, there was an excess amount of stigma that people of color were inferior to white people. This racism in the time period seems to have inspired Harper Lee to write a novel which encompasses this topic.
The whole town is in a very bad time, from the Great Depression and a great racial tension. The town of Maycomb is a disaster that the kids don't have a clue of. Maycomb got hit hard by the Great Depression because lots of occupations there were farmers, and they got hit the hardest. They also have a great number of black people in their town, and they are prejudiced against them. They really don’t like them and they discriminate against them and are really racist.
“I’ve been very mindful that things can change quickly, without warning...” (McCabe 14). Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was greatly influenced by The Great Depression. There are many major historical connections to book, including the Jim Crow laws, mob mentality and the Scottsboro trials.
How to Kill a Mockingbird with Words "Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing" (Lee 20). When Scout realizes that she could lose the time she spends reading with Atticus every night, she becomes worrisome. She fears that every second of reading with Atticus could be her last until, she confesses her troubles to him. The exact emotion that was running throughout Scout's body would be felt if humans lost the ability to speak, everything would turn to chaos.
But no one really tries to look at the situation from any other perspective. Harper Lee didn’t intentionally use offensive words or examples of slavery and mistreatment to offend his African American readers. she uses them to show how horribly African Americans were treated back then, to make his novel more significant and
Maycomb was a “tired old town... there was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see...”, The Great Depression affected many people. Maycomb is an example, showing how lives were and how many would be for the rest of their lives. One event at the beginning of the Depression was the stock market crash.
How did the time period of the novel (30’s) affect how black people were treated? One of the main themes in To Kill a Mockingbird is racial discrimination. Examples of racism and prejudice against black people can be seen throughout the novel. There are several reasons as to why people segregate dark people and they are mostly the important events happening in the 30’s. The time period of which the book was written is the 1930’s
Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you had to face racism. Well if you have Harper Lee is the author for you because she wrote two books which were both focused on racism. “To Kill a Mockingbird” is about a black man who is being charged for rape even though he wasn’t the one that commited the crime. Harper Lee is a very controversial author because she writes about graphic topics.
Although the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, took place in the 1930s, it ties closely into the Civil Rights Movement. This novel displayed the obvious superiority whites had over blacks. It took place during a time when colored people faced discrimination, prejudice, and racism. When the book was published in the 1960s, it made whites furious, resulting in a lot of controversy. Harper Lee had a goal when writing, she wanted to show the relation between actual events that happened during the civil rights and incorporate it into her own novel to show how cruel colored people were treated, specifically when whites accused blacks of doing sinful acts.
