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Themes In Harper Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird'

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Recommended: Social inequality to kill a mockingbird

Hayden Lambeth
Mrs. Vickers
Period # 2
15 December 2015
To Kill a Mockingbird Themes
“You can 't delete racism. It 's like a cigarette. You can 't stop smoking if you don 't want to, and you can 't stop racism if people don 't want to. But I 'll do everything I can to help” ( Mario Balotelli). This quote is a good example because characters in the book do everything they can to help stop racism because they feel the need to help; however, other people do not feel like it, so they are aggressive towards blacks. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960, takes place during the 1930’s. She uses many themes throughout the book; Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird portrays many life lessons, but the most important are discrimination, courage, and racism. …show more content…

Discrimination is one of many themes Harper Lee used in To Kill a Mockingbird. Race, social status, and gender are ways discrimination is shown. In other words, Finch’s would be on the top because their family is white and Atticus is a lawyer. Cunningham’s would be next because they are farmers and very poor, which means that they can’t take anything that they can’t pay back. A good example would be when Walter’s teacher offers to loan him a quarter, which he did not accept because Walter is not able to repay her. Overall, blacks were treated the worst because of their different skin color. In other words, if blacks didn’t listen to whites or do anything they were told they would get beaten, or possibly lynched by a mob of whites. Gender is another way Harper Lee shows discrimination in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Scout is a tomboy in the novel, her family does not not like that very much, especially Aunt Alexandra. Discrimination is used against Scout because they try and make her wear a dress and act more ladylike around people. Aunt Alexandra was racist in the beginning of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by wanting to fire Calpurnia just because she was black, which is a good example of

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