Influencing Generations In To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee

Influencing Generations The novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ written and published by its author, Harper Lee, establishes a well-analyzed portrayal of the 1930s, specifically focusing on racial discrimination in America. The story reveals how African Americans regularly experience harassment and face prejudice from whites. However, Lee not only brings awareness of oppression through the storyline but also shows the reader coming-of-age moments the narrator, Scout, experiences in her perspective as her views about social inequity change and grow from situations involving race she witnessed. In the To Kill a Mockingbird passage in which Scout hits Francis after Francis insults Scout’s father, Atticus, by calling him an inappropriate word for defending

I guess it ain’t your fault if Uncle Atticus is a ******-lover, but I’m here to tell you it certainly does mortify the rest of the family—” (94). From this, we can infer that Francis tends to get racist remarks from the adults around him, especially from Aunt Alexandra, as this is evidence that Aunt Alexandra is a racist. Francis’s racist remarks directly come from what he heard from Aunt Alexandra’s commentary about Atticus’s case. Furthermore, Aunt Alexandra can be seen as a racist when she moves into the Finch’s household and talks to Atticus about Calpurnia during one scene: “And don’t try to get around it. You’ve got to face it sooner or later, and it might as well be tonight. We don’t need her [Capurina] now” (155). Aunt Alexandra is not fond of Calpurnia because she is an African American and, as a result, wants Atticus to remove her from the household. Both Aunt Alexandra and Francis’s behavior proves that not only racism exists in Maycomb County generally, but also in the current Finch family