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To Kill A Mockingbird Research Paper

765 Words4 Pages

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a novel that reveals the hardship of growing up in the 1930s and the dangers of social injustice and segregation. The novel takes place in Maycomb, Alabama, a society that is segregated. There is a white community and a black community. Depending on how and where one is raised, their views and opinions vary. In Maycomb and present day society, people are assimilated into one crowd where their views are shaped to match one idea and one view. In other words, people’s opinions are indoctrinated into the opinion society demands. The white community clumps towards the view that: “all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women” and thus …show more content…

Lee shows how education impacts the way children in Maycomb’s society perceive each other. The Cunningham family is an example of this, they are “country folks, farmers, and the crash hit them hardest” which means that economically they’re poor and in poverty (21). When Walter Cunningham attends the first grade it is immediately shown that his family is stereotyped. Walter is always going to be known as a Cunningham, he’ll be grouped as a whole instead of an individual. “‘What is it, Jean Louise?’ ‘Miss Caroline, he’s a Cunningham’ [...] ‘What, Jean Louise?’ I thought I made things sufficiently clear. It was clear to the rest of us” although it wasn’t clear to us readers (20). Who was Walter? In the children’s eyes he was a Cunningham, someone who “didn’t have much, but they [got] along” (20). They didn’t see that he is different from his family, he is an individual with diverse traits. Nonetheless, he won’t be recognized as Walter he’ll always be known as poor, a Cunningham. The school system circulates this type of discrimination through Maycomb’s society. Lee escorts the reader on a path towards a new perspective, one that is free from what Maycomb perceives Walter as. Jem invites Walter to dinner at their house but continues to see him as just another Cunningham: “‘He ain’t company, Cal he’s just a Cunningham--’ ‘Hush your mouth! Don’t matter who they are, anybody sets foot in this house’s yo’

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