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The Literary Context Of To Kill A Mockingbird

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This essay aims to investigate the literary context of Harper Lee 's To Kill A Mockingbird (1960) from four different perspectives. The scope of this essay does not only include the context from historical, cultural and social points of views, but also the significance of Lee 's early life is considered. The essay explores deeply the novel 's events, characters and main themes, which can all be related to the literary context. This is why the research question of this essay is “A Study of Literary Context in Harper Lee 's To Kill A Mockingbird”.

To Kill A Mockingbird never fails to amaze a reader because of its audacity, as it brings out many controversial issues from 1930s America. The topics include for example the poverty caused by the …show more content…

The poorest white families in Maycomb County were the Cunninghams and the Ewells, who were living behind the town 's garage dump. “ ' '...The Cunninghams are country folks, farmers, and the crash hit them the hardest. ' '”18 For example, Walter Cunningham and Burris Ewells ' characters are both bullied at school, since they do not have the money for lunch or clean clothes. “...Walter Cunningham was sitting there lying his head off. He didn’t forget his lunch, he didn’t have any. He had none today nor would he have any tomorrow or the next day. He had probably never seen three quarters together at the same time in his life.”19 For the African-American people, things seem to be even worse as they are rejected in Maycomb like cancer. The heart of their community, the church, where Calpurnia takes the kids into, is in poor condition with no electricity or …show more content…

The clear main themes in the novel are both gender equality and racial segregation, which Lee presents through the storyline and the prejudiced characters. Tom Robinson 's lawsuit and its conclusion show that justice was primarily based on the white society 's perception of the law. The jury consists only of white men, who are all prejudiced towards the African-American people. “ ' 'The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury

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