Unfortunately, difficult childhood experiences still define adulthood even today. Harper Lee illustrates how childhoods are being shown as innocent, as well as how they can shape a person's future. In To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, she describes how difficult childhood experiences shape the future of kids; in America today, progress has not been made. Childhood is described as a time when children are young, innocent, and filled with a lack of knowledge when they are being put into these situations. In this novel, Jem and Scout, Jem’s sister, go through many troubles finding the truth about their surrounding racial community to being more mature and grown up after watching a trial about an African American being accused of raping a white woman.
The Ewell and Cunningham Families in “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee are different in multiple ways. One way they’re different is their personalities. The Ewells act mean and rude. Little Chuck even calls Burris “a hard down mean one” (27). However, the Cunningham family shows politeness and kindness.
In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Scout tells us that their mother has died but the story might have been altered if the mom was still alive. Many characters personalities, point of view, and the storyline would be modified. People such as Aunt Alexandra and Calpurnia could have been never mentioned in the story. An example would be Aunt Alexandra, if the mother was still alive she probably wouldn’t have moved in with the Finches.
“Somewhere, I had received the impression that Fine Folks were people who did the best they could with the sense they had, but Aunt Alexandra was of the opinion, obliquely expressed, that the longer a family had been squatting on one patch of land the finer it was.” (Lee 173). Scout is reflecting on how in her town the people are judged based on who their family is and not what that person does. The book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee shows how judgmental a small town can be and is seen through the eyes of a young girl. The story shows growth in not only her life but her brothers.
When it comes to father roles in ‘to kill a mockingbird’, the most prominent example is the Atticus finch. In the book, Atticus is a committed father and we can see that throughout the book with how his kids respond to certain situations. Another reason I chose this topic is because we can see the variety of ages, genders and living situations in this book and how fathers impact the development of these characters. We see the contrast in parenting as well, with Bob Ewell and Atticus Finch. Fathers in theory are supposed to provide guidance and love, with or without those factors we see impacting on their community.
Family Structure Around the World In the world today there are very different ways a family can work. Family's now aren't so black and white with just a mother and a father. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Jem and Scout only have their father and their maid. In A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry the Younger family is big and discombobulated.
By analyzing the struggle of these individuals throughout Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the reader observes that the prejudiced society hurts the mockingbirds; this is important because the author demonstrates it is a sin to harm an innocent being. To start, Mayella Ewell symbolizes a mockingbird that the discriminatory society misjudges as a result of her low social class. When Scout is in first grade, readers see that the Ewells are poor and struggle to survive. Atticus tells Scout, “the Ewells had been the disgrace of Maycomb for three generations” (Lee 40).
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. This saying is true in many cases and happens to be true in To Kill A Mockingbird. Throughout the book you see children of characters start to grow up and act like their father. This essay will be looking at three families in To Kill A Mockingbird, the Finches, the Cunninghams, and the Ewells. These three families are key examples that a father’s influence has a significant influence on the character of his children.
In the book “To Kill A Mockingbird”, which is written by Harper Lee, she has a lot of symbolism, but she also has a variety of different kinds of families. Most people do not notice the variety of families that are explained throughout this book. The Ewell’s, Finch’s, and the Radley’s are different, but they are also similar in many ways. Lee uses these three families to show how diverse they are.
In To Kill a Mockingbird, family is destiny. Within the confines of a small town where the same people have lived for generations, no one can escape…becoming their parents. Horror! Either the parents raise their kids to be like them, for good or ill, or the pressure of community expectations that a person live up, or down, to their family is too much to resist. While this attitude creates a comfortable familiarity and a cozy predictability, it also makes progress, both for the individual and the community, very difficult.
When John F. Kennedy became President of the United States in 1961, his first few months in office were not the greatest. After the “Bay of Pigs” incident, JFK felt that he had to get his credibility back and Vietnam was his way to do so. This war tore the United States into two sides; The “Hawks” and the “Doves”. People argued whether the United States should stay involved in Vietnam throughout the entirety John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency. There was no official start to the war, however, the United States had been invested in Vietnamese affairs for many years beforehand.
This essay aims to investigate the literary context of Harper Lee 's To Kill A Mockingbird (1960) from four different perspectives. The scope of this essay does not only include the context from historical, cultural and social points of views, but also the significance of Lee 's early life is considered. The essay explores deeply the novel 's events, characters and main themes, which can all be related to the literary context. This is why the research question of this essay is “A Study of Literary Context in Harper Lee 's To Kill A Mockingbird”. To Kill A Mockingbird never fails to amaze a reader because of its audacity, as it brings out many controversial issues from 1930s America.
Harper Lee portrays childhood as curious and innocent, but also the “more real” aspects of growing up; the fear, the stupidity, and the flaws. The meaning of To Kill A Mockingbird is, childhood plays an extremely large role in a person’s life, and it shapes one’s views, and goals in their future. Times that Lee represents the importance of childhood are when; Scout is curious about Boo (Arthur) Radley, when Scout and Jem sneak into the courtroom, and when Scout walks Boo Radley home.
In the novel, ‘To kill a mockingbird, Harper Lee demonstrates the small, imaginary town, the Maycomb County, as a place where racism and social inequality happens in the background of 1930s America. Not only the segregation between whites and blacks, but also the poor lived in a harsh state of living. As Scout, the young narrator, tells the story, Lee introduces and highlights the effects of racism and social inequality on the citizens of Maycomb County by using various characters such as Boo Radley, Tom Robinson, and Mayella Ewell. Firstly, Harper Lee portrays Boo Radley as a victim of social inequality through adjectives and metaphor in the phrase, “There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten;” ‘Long jagged scar that ran across his face’ tells us that Boo Radley has stereotype about his appearance, which forces to imagine Boo as a scary and threatening person. The phrase, ‘yellow and rotten’ make the readers think as if Boo Radley is poor and low in a social hierarchy, as he cannot afford to brush his teeth.
Families are said to constitute realities in which most of one’s attributes are constructed, based on the family interactions, beliefs, values as well as the behaviours that are seen in the specific families one is brought up into (Archer & McCarthy, 2007). However, even though most of one’s personal characteristics may be heavily influenced by their families; people do have a sense of individuality that makes them unique from any other person in the family (Becvar & Becvar, 2013). Therefore, one may argue that it is these differences that may cause misunderstandings in families.
