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To Kill A Mockingbird Influences

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Historical Influences on the Novel To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in the 1930s during the Great Depression. This was a dark and hopeless time for all who lived in the United States of America. Many real-life events were the foundation for Harper Lee when writing her novel. The Jim Crow Laws, mob mentality, and the Scottsboro trials are all linked to events that occurred in the novel. The Jim Crow laws were a series of laws that were put into place so that African- Americans were sure to feel segregated and inferior. The Jim Crow laws forced segregation by making African-Americans attend separate churches, hospitals, schools, and parks. (Pilgrim) This was very unfair to them because they may have to travel farther …show more content…

By definition, mob mentality is the characteristics of a person when they are in a group setting. Most commonly, it is used in a negative sense, but not always (Smith). There are many demonstrations of mob mentality in everyday life. One example of mob mentality is drinking and smoking when in a group because others are also partaking in these bad decisions. Another example is a family going out to eat in a new, crowded restaurant. It would be inferred that this restaurant serves good food, so that one family is following all the others who are dining at the new restaurant. (Smith) Mob mentality can also be seen in the photograph by Lawrence Beitler. There are substantial amounts of people in this small town watching the lynching who look they just got off work. (Beitler; “Strange Fruit: Anniversary of a Lynching”) Some of these citizens probably never envisioned themselves at an event like this, but they just followed the crowd. This proves that people often will just go with the flow even if it is a poor decision. There are many reasons why people participate in mob activities. First, people feel peer pressure to partake in these activities. They also may feel the need to conform or fit in with the group. Finally, people may participate in mob activities because they feel safe within the mob. They might think that they will not get in trouble for whatever they are doing because they are in a large group …show more content…

There are two different stories of the events leading to the Scottsboro Trials. The true story, through the eyes and thoughts of the accused African-American boys, was that they were riding on a train and they got into a fight with two other white boys. However, two white women stated that the African-American boys raped them (Anderson). The case then went to court. The boys were given unqualified lawyers, and after the jury heard both sides of the story, they came to a decision. They convicted the African-American boys (Anderson). The Supreme Court then made them redo the case with better lawyers, and then it was realized that it was impossible that the boys raped the women because they were in completely different cars on the train. Even with this evidence, the boys were convicted yet again (Anderson). This was very unfair because the evidence of the car layout supported the conclusion that they did not do it. Eventually, after 18 years, they were all spared (Anderson). They were free but not without the price of losing some of the precious years of their lives due to inequality. Racism is one factor that caused these trials to be so unfair. The decision of the jury to seemingly ignore the car evidence that was in favor of the African-American boys showed that they were racists. Them being racists may have been due to having issues with change. Some people tend to have a need for structure, and when

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477 Words | 2 Pages

Each of the trails were staged with insubstantial evidence that any objective jury would be able to see. However, this was not the case in a culture where African Americans have been associated with many negative characteristics. The cases also seem similar to what happen to many freed slaves, when vagrant laws were passed. If African Americas were without any type of work, they were arrested and given a fine. When they were unable to pay, a benevolent white man would come to the rescue and in turn would only ask to repay the debt, a debt that would increase and would make them slaves again.

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509 Words | 3 Pages

How would you feel if you were falsely accused of a terrible crime? That’s right, Ozie Powell and the Scottsboro Boys were accused of rape and sent to jail for many years, a crime of which they didn't even commit. In the case of Scottsboro, Ozie Powell was clearly innocent of rape. Ozie wasn’t on the same car as the woman who accused the boys of raping them, and Ozie didn't even know the other men on the train until the day of the accusations. The woman who accused the boys of the crime were prostitutes, and had had intercourse only a little while before entering the train, explaining why the sperm found in their system was dead.

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198 Words | 1 Pages

Before we can explain the trials, we need to understand what racism is. Routledge states, “...people sometimes use prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior to boost their own self-esteem.” An example of this at Scottsboro is during the trial, where all the black boys were tried together at the same time. Normally, only one person would

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1019 Words | 5 Pages

After they were off the train they immediately yelled rape (Anderson). A group of black men were sent to jail soon after(Johnson). The day of their trial was April 6, 1932, just twelve days after the arrest. It was a very short and chaotic trial where eight of the nine men accused were sentenced to death. The other man was considered too young and was sentenced to life in prison (Johnson).

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741 Words | 3 Pages

In Till’s case, the anger came from the senseless killing of a fourteen year old and how, as a result, the murderers got off with almost no trouble. The jury did not even have to think twice about the innocence of the cruel monsters just because they were white and their victim was black. The pigs were even laughing and rejoicing with their wives as if they did not destroy that boy’s family. It was honestly appalling. The Scottsboro Boys’ trial was even more tragic because it actually scarred them and led some of the boys to a path of devastation.

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1103 Words | 5 Pages

In the Scottsboro trials after the first retrial, the case was appealed because the jury violated the 6th amendment and the court did not allow due process. The jury book for the town of Scottsboro did not even have the name of an african-american male on it so the jury was very clearly biased before it was even picked (Scottsboro American Tragedy). In both trials, the defendants were set up for conviction by a jury that put aside the evidence and convicted them because of the color of their

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1634 Words | 7 Pages

The murder of Emmett Till was a demonstration that whites who committed the worst crime possible would be given a lenient trial because the victim was an African American. The trial of “The Scottsboro boys” was the worst. Everyone knew that the two girls were lying and one of them even confessed that she lied on the stand but the jury still found the defendants guilty. It is not just African Americans

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694 Words | 3 Pages

There are many similarities between the two court cases including the false accusation of rape, the involvement of a lynch mob, the fact that many times they were proven innocent, and that they were all very young. I’ve observed that false accusations of rape was very common in these types of trials, mostly because it was a very serious crime in the southern half of the United States, where racism was very common. Several times after the defendant is proven guilty, someone will come out and say that they were innocent, but often times it is too late for the accused. Most of this type of trial frequent lynch mobs and not just after, but they will try and get to them before they are even tried. Many of these cases are ended by a confession.

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267 Words | 2 Pages

In writing To Kill a Mockingbird the author Harper Lee used real life events as a base for the novel. A few aspects of the book are racism, The Jim Crow Laws, and cases of mob mentality. The first connection to America’s actual history is the presence of the Jim Crow laws in the book. People thought the laws were needed as a way to “Keep the black population in check” (Pilgrim). This image showed racism in the large crowd of people who came to watch a lynching (V.).

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596 Words | 3 Pages

To Kill a Mockingbird : Historical Paper The Great Depression was a time of great change in the United States but the discriminatory ways of society still remained. In Harper Lee’s classic American novel To Kill a Mockingbird there are many references to many of the real-life events of the 1930s. Lee’s novel was influenced by the Jim Crow laws and mob mentality.

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1142 Words | 5 Pages

He shows how he feels about the whole case and how the boys were falsely accused. He focused on how the boys’ “innocence never go the attention that their guilt did” (Wilder). These boys were guilty from the very beginning until proven innocent thirteen years after the crime was committed. Usually it’s the other way around and a person is innocent until proven guilty. The public was so caught up in the prejudice of the case and just assumed since there was a high crime rate in black and Hispanic boys that they had to have done it.

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893 Words | 4 Pages

When all of sudden two young ladies rush off the train and accused the boys of raping them. When in actuality most of the boys were not even in the same car as the young ladies. They were really accusing the boys of raping because they were prostitutes and they were crossing state line which was illegally, When you are rape there are more than likely some kind of sign of a struggle but when Dr.John Lynch ,and Dr. R.R. Bridges examined victims Ruby Bates and Victoria Price less than two hours after the alleged rapes occurred the two doctors found semen in the vaginas of both women, they found little evidence to support their claims that they had been raped ,so in all reality they had lied to get people over the fact that they were prostitutes. By the end all of the nine boys that were convicted and found guilty and all served at least eighteen years in a Alabama chain gang before being either pardon or

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1444 Words | 6 Pages

The jury and judge failed to consider the hard evidence showing the misconduct of rape never took place. During testimony, one of the women directly stated that some of the boys were not in the same car, eliminating the possibility of all nine being convicted. Nevertheless, the court decided in favor of the white women, and thus, all of the boys were thrown into jail. Over the time

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263 Words | 2 Pages

After reading and viewing the mob mentality pieces, I conclude that mob mentality led people to do disgusting acts that they would otherwise never do. For instance, in the article What is Mob Mentality, Smith states that mob mentality is the “...unique behavioral characteristics that emerge when people are in large groups”. This shows that people act differently when they are in large groups and do things that they would not be comfortable doing if they were by themselves. Smith goes on to say that people tend to want to be like others and do what others are doing, becuase when they see other people in a group doing something they figure that the person would not be doing it if it wasn't worth it so maybe they should try it.

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1395 Words | 6 Pages

In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee presents a large social atmosphere that includes many different cultures and extremes. The story takes place in the southern town of Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression. This novel illustrates how the southerners perceived different ideas about each other and social norms. It is told through the eyes of a young girl, Scout Finch, as she is growing up and becoming influenced by societal attitudes. Throughout the course of this book Scout learns many lessons including: how a society functions, why there is conflict between different cultures, and what makes cultures different from each other.

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