Racial Tension In To Kill A Mockingbird And A Time To Kill

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Racial tension use to be prevalent throughout South America. It was seen in the community, within their laws and the people who fought because of the stigma and racial prejudice created. The movie ‘A Time to Kill’ by Joel Schumacher and the book ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Lee Harper, have a number of similarities and differences which can be compared and contrasted, especially surrounding the theme of racial prejudice and the use of symbolism. The courtroom is the main setting in both texts. It was the central point of justice as well as racial intolerance. ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and ‘A Time to Kill’ showed the racial intolerance in the form of segregation. A long shot in ‘A Time to Kill’ showed the division of races within the room and in …show more content…

Similarities in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and ‘A Time to Kill’ was the location. Mississippi and Alabama are states where the two texts were set and are in the southern part of America, where racism in society was abundant. The culture formed in this part of the U.S. was cruel to those in the community who were coloured. The time period these texts were set in differ as there is around 50 year’s difference and reflects the growth and change of racial intolerance. In ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Scout shows how the community played a huge influence of her own racial intolerance in chapter 20 where she states “I had a feeling that I shouldn’t be listening to this sinful man who had mixed children and didn’t care who knew it… (Lee, 2004)’. The man explains to Scout that due to the contempt the community has towards his marriage to a black woman drives him to pretend to be an alcoholic to excuse him of his actions. This is a way of showing the undertone community racism, which is similar to ‘A Time to Kill’ however, was done on a grander, more vicious scale. The KKK is a very prominent force in this text and uses more physical ways to show their racial biases shown in the rally at the courthouse, as well as the attacks against Jake’s family and employees. The shows of racism in the community differed between the time periods in terms of the severity and showed how time period had a huge impact in the