To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, is a book about the racial tensions and segregation that arose in the 1930’s. The general storyline is about the main characters, Scout and Jem. At the start of the story, Jem and Scout were always discriminating against other characters, especially Boo Radley. The town was split in half due to racial segregation and Atticus Finch, their father, was a lawyer who doesn’t care who he’s representing because he’s a man of integrity and decency. Scout and Jem eventually mature and start to understand the dangers of discrimination after they see that Boo Radley is just a human and not the person that they all made him into.
“mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy” (Lee 93). One of the examples of good vs evil in this story is Tom Robinson’s court case with Mayella Ewell. Tom Robinson is a black man named who is accused for a crime of raping and beating Mayella Ewell even though he just helped her with household chores. In the book Tom was seen as a bad figure for most of the book even though he was just a caring, harmless person. You can say many mockingbirds die in today’s reality, but it is the innocent that suffer the most often.
"They don't belong anywhere. Colored folks won't have 'em because they're half white; white folks won't have 'em 'cause they're colored, so they're just in-betweens, don't belong anywhere." (Ch.16, Pg.168) Mr. Raymond acted as if he was drunk so he that he wouldn't need to explain to anyone his love for a black woman. The alcohol, he said, gave the community of Maycomb a reason to say, he didn't realize what he was doing. These kind of relations were completely unheard of during this time.
The first summer when Dill came to Maycomb, Jem and Scout gave him a rundown of the town and it terror “Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that’s why his hands were bloodstained—if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off. There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time” (Lee 16). The dehumanization of Boo Radley sickens the readers, and gives them a malicious notion towards Boo Radley. “He was still leaning against the wall.
In the beginning of the book Stephanie Crawford, the town gossiper, justifies that she knows everything about Boo Radley. Scout and Jem are frightened by Boo Radley because of all the stories they have heard. Scout is terrified of the Radley place and calls Boo, a “malevolent phantom.” According to Miss Stephanie Crawford, Boo Radley was sitting in the living room cutting some items from the newspaper and when Mr. Radley had passed by him, Boo drove the scissors into his leg.
If Judge Taylor were to have had a say in whether or not Tom Robinson was guilty, Tom would have never gone to jail, and would most likely still be alive. Judge Taylor focuses on the facts, and the proof, so when Tom was declared guilty, although he knew it was going to happen from the beginning, it probably still stung a little to him. With each ‘guilty’ added to the poll, the reality of the trial sunk in, and it was hard to believe the society in with he was a part of. Like Atticus said, “this case is not a difficult one, it requires no minute sifting of complicated facts, but it does require you to be sure beyond all reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the defendant,”(203). John Taylor was the reason Atticus had to defend a black man, Mr. Taylor not only supported Atticus, but he supported Tom Robinson as well, he knew Tom was a good guy, with the unfortunate luck to get caught up in the trial.
In our society, innocent people, known as mockingbirds, experience prejudice in their lives. A/T: In the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Background: Tom Robinson is a black person who’s was accused of raping a white girl named Mayella Ewell which he has never done. For this reason, Atticus Finch was appointed to be his lawyer. As a result, Atticus takes a stand for him by approving his case and standing up for him, but Tom was still found guilty.
he dined on raw squirrels and cats he could catch, that 's why his hands are bloodstained-if ate an animal raw you could never wash the blood off. There was a long jagged scar that ran down the side of his face: What teeth he had were yellow and rotten: his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time. ”(Lee 16) Boo is judged like a monster even though Jem and Scout have actually seen him before. Boo is a mockingbird because he is treated like a monster even though he remains unseen.
To Kill A Mockingbird You never really understand a person until you consider things from their point of view - Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. My topics were how is empathy demonstrated or learned by Atticus, How is Empathy demonstrated by Scout and How is empathy demonstrated or learned by Jem. How is empathy shown throughout the characters among the storyline? Atticus believes that not only black people but everyone deserves a fair go whether it's a court case or not.
It seems like everyone is against Jem and Scout or even Atticus except their good neighbors, who really understand them. The conflict even growth bigger when Atticus defense for Tom Robinson, a colored skin man that get accused of raping a white woman. The adult, their friend and even their cousin trying to hurt them. Jem and Scout didn’t deserve to hear those negative comments on their father. Moreover, Atticus didn’t do anything wrong, didn’t he?
Perhaps the boy is referring to their overall helplessness, like the three men burned at the stake by Bloody Mary, who inspired the nursery rhyme. However, in doing so Ralph references an archetype that loosely fits their trio- the blind seer. Sightless according to Ralph, but able to ‘see’ more than the rest of the boys, Ralph, Piggy and Simon have a view into the grievous situation that the other children do not, or are willfully ignoring. Killed in an aerial battle, the sign that “came down from the world of grownups” is a dead parachuter. Though the boys’ island is tumultuous and frightening, this shows that the grownups’ world is not actually better- people are senselessly murdered there, as
In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, there are many valuable lessons to learn about making assumptions. Assumptions occur many times throughout this book from many different people. Assumptions are claims made about something or someone that have no proof. One major assumption in this novel is about Arthur “Boo” Radley. Scout explains, “Jem gave a reasonable description of Boo: Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that’s why his hands were bloodstained—if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood off.
In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, Jem, Scout, and Dill’s innocence is destroyed. They lose their carefree and happy existence through the ignorance and racism in their hometown of Maycomb. Initially, the children believe everyone in Maycomb is friendly. They do not understand the racism occurring in their town until Tom Robinson’s trial. After observing the Tom Robinson trial, the children’s view of some of the citizens in their town change because of the hatred against blacks and the obvious injustice in the courtroom.
“If there’s just one kind of folks, why can they get along with each other? If they’re all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other” (Lee 304). This quote is one of the most significant ones in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird because it is referring to the human race and how we are all practically the same, and yet people persecute one another because of racism. In the town of Maycomb, Alabama, one thing most people have in common is racism.
Being born in America in 1933 has shown to impact Susan Sontag, a liberal author and human rights advocate, when she stated, “I do not think white America is committed to granting equality to the American Negro... this is a passionately racist country; it will continue to be so in the foreseeable future,” on Quotestoknow.com. Susan Sontag, born in the great depression, has set the scene for To Kill A Mockingbird in an extremely powerful way. The citizens in To Kill A Mockingbird experience prejudice in many different ways. A very impactful and influential woman in this novel is an African American woman named Calpurnia.