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To Kill A Mockingbird Critical Lens

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Mark Twain believes that people should "write what [they] know" ("A Quote.."). Some classic books tell stories the reader cannot imagine experiencing, but the book allows the reader to get an inside perspective to make the book seem like a memory of their own, such as David Copperfield, Of Mice and Men, On The Road, and The Diary of a Young Girl. Classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird tell stories of prejudice that most cannot imagine happening in today's society. Yet, if Mark Twain's advice holds true, then the author of To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - should have told the story through what she already knew (and that is exactly what she did). Harper Lee wrote her novel with the specific setting and conflicts because of what she has been through, her experiences in young life, and her personal perspective on racism. The novel To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, starts by introducing Scout Finch, aged six at the onset of the novel, and her older brother, Jem, who live in the tired town of Maycomb, who invest lots of time to creep on their reclusive neighbor, Boo Radley, with the help of their friend Dill. When Atticus, the siblings father, respected …show more content…

Harper Lee grew up in a town populated by only twenty two thousand people (which is much smaller than it sounds). This small Alabama town and its inhabitants were later represented in her story. People closer to Lee in her childhood life include her neighbor, Truman Capote. It is said that Dill, an eccentric boy in the novel, is based off of Ms. Lee's friend and colleague, Truman. Their friendship has been traced back to 1928, when Capote moved to Alabama to live with his aunts next door to Lee. Ms. Lee's father was a liberal lawyer (among other things) with tenacious opinions on justice, and often defended African Americans, which led the way to Scout's father, Atticus, and his unforgettable moral virtues

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Society shaped Harper Lee to write To Kill a Mockingbird because she grew up in an extremely racist time period. To illustrate this, on biography.com¹, it reads “Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama.” In other words, Lee was born in the heart of the south in 1926, a time before equality was widespread. The evidence highlights that Lee grew up in a very racist period in the south, including segregation and the famous Scottsboro Trials. Another example is on page 331, Scout says “Well, coming out of the courthouse that night Miss Gates was - she was goin’ down the steps in front of us, you musta not seen her - she was talking to Miss Stephanie Crawford.

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Father, lawyer, and friend, the gentlemanly Atticus Finch hopes to shape the character of his children. The novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, is the story of the childhood of a young girl named Jean Louise “Scout” Finch. Throughout the book, Scout’s father, Atticus, tries his best to raise her and her brother, Jem, the right way as a single parent. To Kill a Mockingbird exemplifies the way the character of Atticus Finch either uses ritual or abandons it in order to develop certain character qualities within his children. He specifically focuses on the development of honesty, courage, and humility.

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To Kill a Mockingbird focuses on multiple significant ideas to highlight the main ideas of the novel. One of great magnitude is explained in chapter three of the novel when author Harper Lee simplifies the importance of being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes to view each different perspective. “First of all,” he said, “if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folk. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.” Be understanding, realize that honest mistakes happen as in the excerpt with Scout and Walter.

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Wesley Mrs Pearson English-10c 5/15/24. Historical lens The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a great description of how the social norms and expectations of the black population were in southern Alabama back in the 1930s during the Jim Crow era (which really enforced segregation). Racial conflicts happen a lot in To Kill A Mockingbird,From the perspective of the narrator Scout Finch who had to learn over time that not only are black people treated poorly but they are people too. In the novel she sees how people treated Atticus like pure garbage for even defending them.

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The Effect of Perspective and Understanding To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, brings into great perspective how important genuine understanding can be in day-to-day life. Her story follows siblings living in southern Alabama, positioned in the heart of a town poisoned by prejudice. This novel follows a young girl facing morals in her town, through her eyes, as well as her father Atticus, a lawyer, willing to stand up for what is right against rigid, set-in-stone views shared by the town. Simply put, a sympathetic perspective is all it takes to sway mindsets. At the beginning of the book, through the eyes of Scout, she complains to her father, Atticus, about her misfortunes at school that particular day.

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Brooklyn Hansen Ms. Pearson English 10C May 20, 2024 TKMB Rough Draft The book, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, is an informative book on how society was in the 1930’s. There are many lenses in which to view this book, but the most useful one is the Marxist lens, which is viewing text with structural powers. In the book, the Finch family shows how they use their influence to either help or criticize the less fortunate people inside and out of their family, who are underprivileged because of their age, race or social class which fits with the times stereotypes.

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While growing up in the 1930s, Nelle Harper Lee experienced problems and great moments in the world around her. All of these important experiences played a role in her award winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird. By applying the skills she learned from seeing problems of the world and solving them Lee was able to fabricate a novel that would leave a mark on humanity and that would teach people how to respect and love each other. While writing To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee was inspired by her early life, racism in the south, family relationships, and class divisions during her time. Growing up in a conservative southern family Harper Lee was able to acquire plenty of information about family and life in a small southern town to include in

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In To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout’s father Atticus was a lawyer, much like Lee’s own father, Amasa. Scout’s mother dies in the book when she is roughly two years old. Lee’s mother endured a nerve disorder and passed away when Lee was 25, although this is different in the book Harper Lee’s mother could not function normally for her and all her siblings, it felt like they didn’t have a mother. Her family had a home cook, Haddy Clausell;Calpurnia, was modeled in the novel after Haddy (Newquist 2). Lee’s lifelong friend Truman Capote inspired the character Dill in her novel, they both in real life and in the novel would come every summer from Meridian, Mississippi to stay with his relatives.

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To Kill A Mockingbird Literary Analysis Throughout To Kill A MockingBird, by Harper Lee there are many acts of courage. This is shown in Atticus Finch, Jem Finch, and Boo Radley. Atticus shows the most courage in the book but all three of these characters show true courage in some way, shape, or form. Boo Radley showed a lot of courage, but he was not in the storyline as much as Atticus. Throughout To Kill A Mockingbird, courage is defined as standing up for people and doing what’s right.

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Literature can be analyzed with many different critical lenses. While analyzing To Kill a Mockingbird, one may use a critical lens to recognize the different ideas throughout the novel. Harper Lee’s novel demonstrates her perspective on intolerance and discrimination within the early twentieth century. Firstly, intolerance of people who are different is very prevalent within the novel.

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She relates many things that she saw from her own life to the book, “It's believed that Harper Lee was inspired by her own life growing up in Monroeville, Alabama. The plot of To Kill a Mockingbird is reportedly based on a trial where Lee's father—a lawyer like Atticus Finch—served as a defense counsel for two African American men accused of murdering a white storekeeper” (Britannica). In her book, it seems that she embodies her own experiences through friends and family. All of the events sparked a desire to write a book that would call out the cruel inequality that the colored community endured and overcame on a daily basis. One of the ways that she relates her life to the book is by taking herself and representing that using Scout basically as

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614 Words | 3 Pages

In society, there are very few people who have the unwavering dedication to stand up for what they believe. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, a black man was convicted and accused of a crime he didn 't commit, raping a white women, which is not in anyway tolerable in society. In Harper Lee 's To Kill A Mockingbird, the author used point of view and symbolism to acknowledge how the the several social divisions which make up much of the adult world are shown to be both irrational and extremely destructive. To begin with, the short story To Kill A Mockingbird, used point of view to show how the many social divisions in the world are irrational and destructive. Scout; a first grade student at the time, was telling the story from her point of view and what had occurred from her childhood perspective.

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Essay 1 Date Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird “To kill a Mockingbird” is a novel in which Harper Lee, the author, presents forth various themes among them the unheard theme of social molarity. Harper dramatically uses a distinctive language through Scout, who is the narrator of the story to bring out the difficulties faced by children living in the southern Alabama town of Maycomb. Harper has dramatically displayed use of bildungsroman throughout the story; this helped to give the story a unique touch of a child’s view to bring out a different type of humor and wit. It has also used to develop and thrive the theme of morality in the society.

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Though, she watched the people around her and in her community struggle. The main character Scout had many children in her class that were living in poverty and she could clearly see how those children’s appearance and actions were different than families who had money. “Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama… Her father

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To Kill a Mockingbird Literary Analysis There is an abundant amount of fear and wondering about the unknown in the world. A prime example of this idea is in Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. This modern classic is set during the Great Depression in the small-town of Maycomb County. Everyone knows each other and gossip disperses among the town rapidly.

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