Sexism In To Kill A Mockingbird Analysis

In To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, it is vivid that gender roles were part of society in the 1930s. Scout Finch, a little girl, shows that being a girl doesn’t define her personality or actions. Although this book was published in 1960 and was set in the 1930s, the contention of gender roles is still prominent in today’s civilization.

“The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.” This is a quote from Atticus Finch, a courageous and wise character from Harper Lee 's novel, To Kill A Mockingbird. The story is told through the perspective of a young girl, Jean Louise ¨Scout¨ Finch. She lives with her older brother, Jeremy, and widowed father and prominent lawyer, Atticus, in Maycomb, Alabama during the time of the Great Depression. Throughout the novel, the children experience the injustice and prejudice of society through a tough case that their father was appointed to and are taught to respect and tolerate all people, despite their differences. To Kill A Mockingbird is influential in American culture through its portrayal of themes of prejudice, racism and innocence.

Stereotyping is a general idea that someone uses to view someone before they actually get to know them. In To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Scout, Jem, and Dill stereotype people until Scout’s father tells her to stop stereotyping. Harper Lee suggests that in order to fully understand someone, you must learn to see the world from their point of view.

In To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout was persistently criticized for playing, acting and thinking as if she was a boy. At one point in the novel, Jem says “It’s time that you starting bein’ a girl and actin’ right!” (Lee, 153) Jem doesn’t realize that he is telling Scout to be different from who she currently is. If she started acting the way that he implied, Jem would be a very lonely boy. He is unintentionally lowering his little sister’s self-esteem. Limiting the way humans can act based on what gender they were born has no logic,

In the story To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee one of the main characters is Jean Louise also known as Scout. Scout is a very compassionate, forgiving, fearful, and a very strong advocate for women. Most of these traits someone as young as she is would not normally have.

There were many characters in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird that were victims of stereotyping. Some of these characters include Jean Louise Finch, or Scout, Atticus Finch, and Tom Robinson. Scout is often stereotyped by her Aunt Alexandra, and by her neighbor, Mrs. Dubose for not being ladylike. Usually, Scout is wearing overalls, and is outside throughout the day with her brother Jem, and her friend Dill, instead of following the expectation for a lady and wearing dresses, and doing housework. Scout is aware of the stereotype that is held against her. Throughout the novel, she tries her best to overcome this stereotype by acting more ladylike, especially in front of her Aunt Alexandra. Scout still remains a tomboy mentally, but physically, she tries her best to act like a lady.

Harper Lee wrote To Kill A Mockingbird in 1960. The novel is based on prejudice life in the 30’s, a time when people discriminated others for being different and judged people based on who they are on the outside and not the inside. Many people were unaware of these prejudices at this time, which is why Harper Lee wrote this book: to bring awareness of these unfair injustices. As Scout is exposed to hatred and prejudicial views she matures throughout the novel To Kill A Mockingbird.

To Kill a Mocking bird, by Harper Lee is one of the most well known and bestselling novels in America. The novel is about a young girl named Scout, her brother named Jem, and their friend named Dill, all eager to investigate Boo Radley, the neighborhood phenomenon. It tells the court battle between Tom Robinson and the court. How he so called raped Mayella, a Ewell. Then it just tells the story of two siblings, scout and Jem, and their journey throughout the novel. Harper Lee used prejudice and stereotyping in the novel to make an image for the reader to let them comprehend how time was in the 1930s during The Great Depression. Racial, social, and gender are all the types of prejudice and stereotyping in the novel.

One of the pressures Scout experiences was the death of her mother, being raised without a female figure. Scout was very young when her mom died, and didn't remember much. Atticus is raising Scout and Jem alone. Most of the time Atticus does not put pressure on Scout to be more ladylike. Scout asked Jem once, what their mother was like. Scout wishes she had a mother to grow up to teach her ‘mom’ things that Atticus can not. Scout likes to wear more casual clothes, more like jumpsuits, or shorts and just a tee shirt, unlike all the other girls whose mothers like them in dresses. Since Scout never had her mom growing up, Atticus lets her be. Until Scout started school, she was required to wear a dress. She felt very uncomfortable and didn't like it at all. When she is around her aunt it causes more trouble, Aunt Alexandra feels like Scout is her responsibility even though her father Atticus has told Scout that her aunt doesn't understand little girls because she grew up with a boy. Having to be

One significant theme conveyed by Harper Lee throughout the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is the destruction of innocence. This theme is conveyed throughout the novel with two main characters, Scout and Jem. Their childhood innocence began to fade as they grew older, finding out that not everyone is good even though they had never seen evil before. Tom Robinson and Boo Radley were both misjudged and had no intentions of hurting anyone, yet they both got hurt. The mockingbirds can be used to represent innocence, and several characters can be represented as mockingbirds that have been killed such as Jeremy “Jem” Atticus Finch, Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, Tom Robinson, Arthur “Boo” Radley, and Charles

The Oxford English Dictionary defines gender roles as, “The role or behavior learned by a person as appropriate to their gender, determined by prevailing cultural norms.” But what's the problem with that? Singling out one gender to carry responsibilities that the other gender should not. And during the time of poverty, unemployment and hardship known as The Great Depression, is when gender stereotyping established its place as a norm. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee’s ideas of gender stereotyping from the 30’s compels Scout to feel pressure from her town.

rejudice in Maycomb in the 1930 's in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, was born on April 28, 1926. She was born and raised in Monroeville, Alabama. She published To Kill a Mockingbird on July 11, 1960. Harper Lee became the only author to win the Pulitzer prize for her first and only novel. The book is based on her childhood life as an outsider. In the book, she talks about a variety of themes, and one theme she focused on, is maturity. She examines maturity in many different ways, for example with Scout growing up from a little girl to a mature girl going to school. Maturity comes with an understanding of respect for others. Through examples of the book, she uses dissonance and

that has been deeply rooted in the mind of Aunt Alexandra. When she moves into the Finches’

In To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee portrays Scout a tomboy who contradicts the stereotype of the southern ideal little girl during the 1930’s. As Scout is a fighting, masculine, and cursing tomboy. For instance, Scout gets angry at Walter Cunningham, and she starts “rubbing his nose in the dirt” fighting Walter Cunningham (Lee 30). An act forbidden by the social norms of the southern belle. Furthermore, the ideal little “girls didn’t resort to violence” or profanity (Johnson 152). Additionally, Scout fought Walter the converse of the ideal “belle”. Accordingly, Scout begins to “like words like damn and hell now” in her vocabulary (Lee 105). However, no “belle” “would dream of using coarse language” that Scout often uses (Johnson 144). Showing