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To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee: A Literary Analysis

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Our past influences everything we do; from day to day life, to the creative projects we share with the world. This certainly holds true for Harper Lee and Albert Camus, both of whom are authors of award winning novels. These authors allowed their backgrounds to shine through in their writing. Even though some points are more obvious than others, it is easy to find references to the authors’ lives in their stories. Harper Lee grew up in a small town in southern Alabama while the Great Depression was at its worst. The fictional Maycomb County, the main setting of Lee’s only novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, could easily have been modeled after her own hometown. Many other details throughout the book can be compared with Lee’s childhood. Ms. Lee was reported as being “tougher than many of the boys” growing up as she defended her childhood friend, Truman Capote, who was made fun of for being “sissy” ("Nelle Harper Lee"). In To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee morphed into the main character of Scout, and Capote became Dill, a scrawny boy who stays in Maycomb County during the summers. The parallel is evident in chapter nine, when Scout punches her cousin for insulting Dill and her dad, Atticus, who is modeled after Lee’s …show more content…

Arguably one of the most memorable scenes of To Kill a Mockingbird is the case of Tom Robinson, a Negro accused of raping a young white girl, and whom Atticus is charged with defending. Ms. Lee’s father was given the job of defending two black men prosecuted for the apparent murder of a white storekeeper (“Amasa Coleman Lee…”). In the end, neither lawyer succeed and the African Americans are hanged. Scout Finch receives grief throughout the novel for having a “nigger-lover” as a father, and it is assumed Ms. Lee did, as well (Lee, 94). Many experiences in Harper Lee’s life influenced the story of Scout

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