Markus Hall History 10 05/6/2015 Book Review of To Kill a Mockingbird The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee takes place in the Deep South in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. Harper Lee paints images that touch your heart and soul, giving the reader a new outlook on life and imparting life lessons that will impact the reader.. There are many themes throughout the book which serve as life-changing lessons for the narrator, Scout, and her brother, Jem. These events shape their outlook on life as they grow up in a city that, at first, seems idyllic. The story takes place in the mid 1930’s, a time in which racism is still prominent and the Jim Crow laws are still in effect. The story aims to teach the lesson that although there is pain …show more content…
Scout and Jem try to sit in the black section at the trial because they have become close with the black community due to their bond with their maid, Calpurnia. Tom Robinson takes the stand and tells a convincing story, claiming his innocence. Atticus also makes an excellent case for his defense. Tom could not have hit Mayella Ewell during the rape as claimed because he cannot use his left arm. He is right handed, and the location of Mayella’s injuries, which came at the hand of her father, make it impossible for it to have been he who hit her. Scout and Jem believe Tom Robinson will win the trial, but for a black man being tried by a white jury during that time, it was impossible. The children were crushed that Tom Robinson was found guilty. They see the injustice in the situation and the division between the black and white and good and bad people in their town. People in the town do not try to see the good in Tom Robinson, but are quick to judge him and others by the color of their skin. Like the mockingbird, Tom Robinson is destroyed despite his innocence. Atticus later finds out that Tom Robinson was shot trying to escape from …show more content…
According to Edwin Grimsley, a writer for the Innocence Project, there are a number of cases that mirror that of Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird. He describes numerous cases in which black men were wrongfully convicted of crimes due to the racial bias of the Jim Crow era. One man, Ed Johnson, was arrested for sexually assaulting a white woman in Tennessee in 1906. Despite a strong case purporting his innocence including accounts from witnesses, he was convicted by the all-white jury and sentenced to death. While in jail, a mob broke in and murdered him in a lynching, which was exactly what the townspeople of Maycomb tried to do to Tom Robinson. In 2000, Johnson’s conviction was