Should To Kill a Mockingbird still be widely read and taught in schools?
Many different views support and invalidate the perspective about whether or not it is suitable for students to read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. To Kill a Mockingbird is a rape trial from the eyes of a six-year-old girl named Scout Finch. Scout is a curious and daring young girl who loves to ask questions and explore. In the story, Tom Robinson, a black man in mid-1930s Alabama, is falsely accused of raping a white nineteen-year-old girl (Mayella Ewell), the daughter of her abusive father Bob Ewell. The book focuses on the previous factors and then the aftermath of the trial. Written by Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird is shown to uses many racial slurs throughout
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To Kill a Mockingbird should not be taught in schools because it discriminates against African Americans, not showing the perspective of Tom Robinson himself, and portraying Atticus Finch as a white savior to the reader.
Discrimination broken down in two words is to discriminate against a group of people, not for their ethnicity, sex, and even their disability. Prejudice and unjust treatment are shown throughout every chapter of To Kill a Mockingbird thoroughly targeting the black communities. For example, segregation is displayed in chapter 12 when Calphurnia takes Jem and Scout to her church. To Scout’s surprise, it is an all-black church but her description of it makes it seem like they are going to a junkyard. The text states “ It was an ancient paint-peeled frame building the
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For example, Reagan Boseley is a sophomore in high school who wrote her views on TKAM she states “ ‘To Kill a Mockingbird teaches children in schools about oppression, and it’s vital that kids learn this so we don’t repeat the same mistakes we have made in the past,’” ( Why Should We Continue to Teach To Kill A Mockingbird in Our English Classes?). This quote does not give any evidence on why kids have to go through oppression because TKAM shows characters like Boo Radley who have gone through oppression and it didn’t help him in the long run because society still misunderstands him. Another weak excuse that is used to show that To Kill a Mockingbird should still be read in schools is “ ‘To Kill a Mockingbird explores many important morals that need to be introduced into the minds of the average, teenage student. These themes and morals include showing the value of empathy and understanding differences between people.’” ( Why Should We Continue to Teach To Kill A Mockingbird in Our English Classes). Somewhat of this quote is true there are many different times in TKAM that empathy is shown and this could be able to help the average student. But, the perspective is shown that TKAM is the only book that could be found with values that support empathy and understanding of differences between others.