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The Influence of History on American Literature
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Recommended: The Influence of History on American Literature
To Kill a Mockingbird was a book written in 1960 by Harper Lee, the novel commented on and exhibited the social injustices of the early 20th century. More specifically speaking, the horrid displays of prejudice and racism in the Scottsboro Trials of 1931. The Scottsboro Case involved two white women accusing nine African-American teenagers of raping them in the back of a dark train car. The trial occurred in southern Alabama and held an all-white jury. Although the boys were very clearly innocent they were still convicted and given the death sentence.
These trials focused around a group of black boys who were persecuted and treated unfairly due to the color of their skin. Harper Lee, the author of To Kill A Mockingbird, grew up during the time this was taken place and it shows in her writing. The novel To Kill a Mockingbird revolves around the trial of Tom Robinson, a trial very reminiscent of the Scottsboro Trials of the 1930s. The two trials have many similarities in characters, events, and the verdict.
Historical Influences in To Kill a Mockingbird Do you ever wonder what happened during 1930’s; well the novel “To Kill A Mockingbird” takes place during the great depression. Harper Lee used Nonfiction events that happened in real life and used them to make her book. There are connections in the book of the Jim Crow Laws, Mob Mentality, and the Scottsboro Trials. The first historical connection that Harper Lee used is the Jim Crow laws.
Real life events have motivated Harper Lee to use in her novel To Kill a Mockingbird. There are connections to Jim Crow laws, mob mentality, and the issues of racism. The first connection to America’s actual history is the existence of the Jim Crow laws in the book. Jim crow laws were created to divorce black and white.
Author Harper Lee published To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960 during a time of change in the United States, race relations were strained, civil rights leaders were emerging from sit-ins and protests and states confronted the tensions of segregation. To Kill a Mockingbird, while fictional, had a plot that resonated with many southern whites and African Americans, that of racial injustice and loss of innocence. The author claims that the plot is based on her interpretation of events that occurred in her home state of Alabama. While she does not reference the exact event the plot is based on there are similarities to the Scottsboro, Alabama case that occurred in 1931 in which nine African American males were accused of raping a white woman on a train to Mississippi. The novel deals with the serious issues of racial inequality as well as issues of leadership, courage and integrity.
The laws were about segregation; the blacks should consume their products which must be inferior to those consumed by the whites. For instance, in Montgomery, they could only attend inferior schools, drink water from specified areas and borrow books from specific
How to kill a mockingbird is about the time period where African Americans were discriminated and oppressed. This time period had many racist moments in this time period therefore if you are going to be reading a book about, you need to take it from an educational standpoint not a real life scenario standpoint. With How to Kill a Mockingbird could quite possibly be
Moreover, an immeasurable number of black codes and Jim Crow laws were enacted, ranging from literacy tests and voting requirements to fines for teaching a black student. These were not the last of the restrictions
These were just a few of the laws that began the separation of blacks and
Being able to completely understand and follow the different language in To Kill a Mockingbird is one thing, but to decide whether or not it’s still relevant is another thing. Well this book still is relevant and yes some may say that this book is history and we should be reading about the future and present not about the past, but our past is the most important because we can read about the mistakes made and not make them again. To Kill a Mockingbird is based around the civil rights movement and that means that there was a lot of racism happening during the novel. Even though To Kill a Mockingbird is considered an “older” novel and currently it’s the 21st century and not all students enjoy reading this book in their schools but the novel should stay in these curriculums because of the hard times in the civil rights movement
The book “To Kill A Mockingbird” takes place in a small town in Maycomb County Alabama in the 1960s. There were many historical realities in the book. The book presents many of the racial factors in which were alive at the time. Many believe that the book To Kill A Mockingbird is an accurate portrait of what was going at the times. In Maycomb County Alabama in the 1960’s practically everyone was still racists.
Since many black communities were poor, there was little money to go to school (Tennessee State Museum). Because of this, schools for white people were nice buildings with multiple classrooms, water, and electricity (National Museum of American History). Meanwhile, schools for black kids were buildings with one-to-two classrooms and no water or electricity (National Museum of American History). Those laws made it so that black people got less education than was needed (National Museum of American History).
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a suspenseful and opinion changing novel. How the characters see what is happening opens up a different perspective in what their lives were really like. Jean Louis Finch, also known as Scout, is a seven year old who is daring and adventurous who lives with her older brother, Jem, and her widowed father Atticus. They live in a small Alabama town called Maycomb. Maycomb is suffering through the Great Depression, but Atticus is a lawyer so his family is better off than others.
Do you see people having courage in their society? Harper Lee puts courage as a central idea of To Kill a Mockingbird just as courage is a central idea in The Giver and if you have read the book then you would know that Jonas uses his courage to change society. It is almost the same thing in To Kill a Mockingbird except Atticus is trying to stop racial segregation in the society. If you haven 't read To Kill a Mockingbird then you have to know it is a fictional story about a girl named Scout who grew up in the 1930’s when segregation was all over America. I believe that Harper Lee adds courage as a key component of the overall To Kill a Mockingbird story because courage can change a whole society as she proves in her book.
Although the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, took place in the 1930s, it ties closely into the Civil Rights Movement. This novel displayed the obvious superiority whites had over blacks. It took place during a time when colored people faced discrimination, prejudice, and racism. When the book was published in the 1960s, it made whites furious, resulting in a lot of controversy. Harper Lee had a goal when writing, she wanted to show the relation between actual events that happened during the civil rights and incorporate it into her own novel to show how cruel colored people were treated, specifically when whites accused blacks of doing sinful acts.
