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The Extent To kill a Mockingbird critiques the cultural values of Maycomb Society

Better Essays

‘To kill a Mockingbird’ is a strong reflection of Harper Lee, the author’s, upbringing. Having been raised in the small town of Alabama in the 1920’s she was frequently exposed to prejudice and this inspired her to write a book, her only to date, loosely based on her early days. Tom Robinson’s trial, set in Maycomb County, is a parallel to the Scottsboro Trial, which was an infamous case during Lee’s childhood, where a ‘negro’ was accused of rape. However the emphasis is based more on the lawyer, Atticus Finch, who defends him, as the book is written from the perspective of his daughter, Jean Louise, known as ‘Scout’. Throughout, an importance is placed on the fact that ‘it's a sin to kill a mockingbird’ as they only ‘sing their hearts …show more content…

Also, at one point Atticus suggests that ‘we need a police force of children’ as the book often emphasizes a child’s innate justice and subsequent ability to challenge the irrationality of adults. Dill Harris, Scout’s childhood ‘fiancé’ claims that as an adult he’s ‘gonna be a new kind of clown… (he’s) gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.’ This is because, being a child, he has an unblemished view of society so he understands how illogical some people are and, in his case, want’s to humour them. Harper Lee takes advantage of this and allows Maycomb to ridicule itself by showing in a simplistic, child’s view, the wrong doings of the community. Maycomb County is inward looking because it is an isolated community with ‘nothing to see outside the boundaries’ of its ‘old town’. As it’s also based on heritage, ‘it was a source of shame’ that the Finches ‘had no recorded ancestors’ because every family in Maycomb was typecast with a ‘streak’ according to its predecessors habits. To most of Maycomb ‘the longer a family had been squatting on one patch of land the finer it was’, and those most accepted were people whose ‘tradition of living on the land remained unbroken’. As the County’s values are based on heritage people are constantly looking back rather than forward and this prevents progression, particularly because Maycomb is so isolated and therefore there is no

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