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Major themes to kill a mockingbird
Themes in the novel to kill a mockingbird
Jim crow laws and its effects
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One example of Jim Crow etiquette norms in To Kill A Mockingbird is that a black male could not offer his hand or any other part of his body to a white woman. If he did, he would be accused of rape. Tom Robinson is accused of raping Mayella Ewell because Mr.Ewell saw him touch his daughter. Since nobody wants to go around the Ewells and the Ewells do whatever they want, Atticus is fighting for the defendant, but knows that the result will still be the same. Later on in the book, we find out that Mr.Ewell abuses his daughter.
While the Jim Crow laws aren’t directly mentioned in the book, the prejudice caused by these laws are very present, and this prejudice is shown in throughout
People during that time weren’t scared to insult each other because of their race because racism was everywhere in the country and there was no law to prohibit racism. Jim Crow Laws ,Scottsboro Trial, and African American Church Burning inspired Harper Lee to write her book. Jim Crow Laws helped us understand how racism was back in 1900s in Maycomb Alabama. It showed us how black people always had to be lower than white people.
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee contains various examples of racism and prejudice throughout the novel. The story takes place in the 1930's, a period when racism was a part of everyday life. Prejudice and racism in this book are represented by acts of hate towards others because of the color of their skin. In this novel, prejudice and racism was dominantly pointed towards blacks. Acts of racism can be discreet to the point that you can easily miss them.
On the surface Maycomb County might seem like quiet, nice place to live, but deeper into the town hidden identities are discovered, courage is needed, and the maturation of characters is crucial to unearthing the truth about life in the 1930s. In Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, readers learn about a small town named Maycomb County and the struggles that occur within it. During the Great Depression and a peak of Southern racism, readers met the main character Scout. Scout, a girl ages six to nine, narrates this story for years and the happenings in the town. Years pass and different incidents arise including a court case about rape, a mean old neighbor, and the mysterious man next door.
“The Great Depression was a time of devastation and uncertainty. After the stock market crashed in October 1929, millions of Americans lost their jobs and homes” this article and quote helped Harper Lee to write the famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird (McCabe 12). The central idea of this paper will focus on historical influences in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird for example, The Great Depression because it was taken place in this time period. All the historical influences covered in this paper will be the Jim Crow laws, mob mentality, and lastly the Scottsboro trials. One of the influences in Harper Lee’s book To Kill a Mockingbird is The Jim Crow laws.
Everyone has a hatred towards something or someone and that is perfectly normal. When you have a hatred towards something that someone can't change about themselves, you should probably keep it to yourself. When you express your emotion of hatred to a person about something that they have to live with or something they enjoy, it can really get to that person. You can make that person feel unwanted. You can make them feel like they can't go anywhere or do anything without being judged.
In To Kill A Mockingbird, there are many references to the Jim Crow laws, which were created to keep inequality towards the races. The Jim Crow laws were considered a safeguard for whites and a way of life for blacks. The people at that time thought that whites were superior to blacks in all-important ways
Sources of Enmity in To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, is a timeless, touching novel that examines stereotyping and its consequences. The novel follows Atticus Finch, a small-town lawyer, as he defends a black man, Tom Robinson, who is accused of raping a white woman in Maycomb, Alabama. The novel also shows how the lives of Atticus' children, Scout and Jem, are affected and how what they experience influences the way they grow up. It allows us to see characters like Boo Radley and Bob Ewell as they add to the theme of racism and prejudice as well. To Kill a Mockingbird deals most obviously with racial prejudice but the greater lesson has to do with class differences and how a person's inherited social status unfairly
To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, mentions the Jim Crow Laws a couple of times. Many states, particularly in the south, followed
Of the numerous themes from Harper Lee’s famous novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, one stands out, injustice. This subject appears multiple times throughout the book. Firstly, Mr. Ewell demonstrates injustice towards the Finch family by insulting them and harming them. Again injustice shows itself in Tom Robinson’s false accusation. Lastly, this horrible topic becomes apparent in Aunt Alexandra’s actions towards Calpurnia.
The theme of law and justice is one of the most significant themes in To Kill A Mockingbird, as the setting of the novel is heavily segregated, which highlights the importance of order and equality. It starkly contrasts with the theme of racial segregation and social ranks, therefore bringing about the concepts of good and evil in Maycomb society. Although law and order is present throughout the novel, it is presented as the weaker force when compared to segregation and chaos. This is shown when Scout describes Tom, “If he had been whole, he would have been a fine specimen of a man”, the word “whole” meaning disabled literally. However, there is this symbolic meaning of “whole” describing Tom’s skin colour, making him not whole as a person.
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.
One of the main themes of the novel is Racism. During the time of depression, racism and poverty were a common issue. People with a dark skin tone, i.e the African- Americans were seen as derogatory and treated like dirt. Harper Lee depicts it in a very realistic way.
In the literary works Night, To Kill a Mockingbird, and the “Rwandan Genocide,” many human rights outlined in “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights” were violated. Night is an autobiography written by Elie Wiesel, who was a Jew that survived the Holocaust. He suffered in several different concentration camps, enduring the pain they inflicted. To Kill a Mockingbird is a historical fiction novel written in retrospect of fictional events. Scout, the narrator, is a young girl whose family is experiencing the Depression and segregation.