To Kill a Mockingbird Theme Analysis/Essay

Essay Prompt: In a 1-2 page character analysis, explain what makes Atticus such a good parent, using quotes and evidence from the text to back up your claims.

It is the dream of many to achieve equality for all. Often, however, opposition to this cause is found closer to home than expected. In her eye-opening novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee sets her scene in 1930’s Maycomb, Alabama a tiny, rural town where three children, Scout, Dill, and Jem learn that issues of social discrimination are found daily in their hometown on a massive scale. The story is not only an entertaining tale, but a coming-of-age story as the children learn one of the the harshest realities associated with growing up: that not everyone is equal. In the book, these social inequalities and divisions are best brought to light through the community’s unfair treatment of Tom Robinson, a negro falsely accused of rape; Mayella Ewell, a poor girl from a large family with an abusive father; and Dolphus Raymond, a white man who loves a black woman.

Racism is a part of human nature; everyone judges their surroundings and the people living in it through a secret lens. Since the beginning of time racism has occurred, but during the Great Depression this lens was most clear to all. This goes hand in hand with the story of “To Kill a Mockingbird”, written by Harper Lee. This book is based on Lee’s childhood during the Depression. Some of the characters in the story are portrayed in her actual life; Atticus is based off her father who was also a lawyer, Dill was in reference of her friend Truman Capote, and Jean Louise is referring to Lee herself telling the story of her life experiences (Baddeley). Throughout the novel, Lee expresses the events that went on around her during the

​In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee accurately depicts life in 1930’s Alabama. Towns were filled with prejudice and many forms of tension, and this novel shows many examples of them. Racial prejudice was shown among the town of Maycomb and is the largest source of agitation throughout the book; the Tom Robinson trial is a great example of this. Suspicion and class prejudice also play a very large role and involves the Radley’s and many other families among Maycomb. The pressure to become a lady causes great hostility between Scout and her Aunt Alexandra. Maycomb’s populous shows these antagonisms with great ease. As the story unfolds, many characters pay their price for actions.

To Kill a Mockingbird Literary Analysis To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a pivotal piece of literature when looking at women and their rights during the 1930s and how innocence of a child can be striped away by the harsh realities of life. In our novel, we meet the protagonist and first person narrator Jean Louise (Scout) Finch. Scout, being raised by a single father, is allowed to grow up “wild” during the first years of her life. When she reaches school age, however, she begins to have outside influences in her life trying to force her into societies mold of what a woman “should be.” One of the major themes in To Kill a Mockingbird is that of youth and innocence.

Throughout the novel To Kill a Mockingbird one of the main themes is the importance of moral education taught by Atticus to Scout and Jem. Atticus educates the children in many ways that a formal education in 1930s may prohibit, like the lessons of courage and integrity. For instance, in the scene where Atticus talks to Jem about Mrs. Dubose, their elderly neighbour’s death. During this section Atticus speaks highly of Mrs. Dubose, how she dies free of her addiction to morphine and how she shows what the meaning of real courage is. In this lesson Atticus states, “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin

Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird introduces characters that are indirectly characterized and defined by the actions they take. By striving towards truth and justice, these characters are able to help those who are vulnerable or at a disadvantage because they feel obligated to do so. Atticus, a white Lawyer, Tom, a black town member, and Scout, Atticus’ daughter, all illustrate this quality in different situations under similar circumstances in the time of extreme racism against blacks. Through the use of indirect characterization and irony we are able to see this obligation for good that these characters share and how this quality may help better the town of Maycomb.

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.

Classic texts have the ability to remain timeless and obtain an ongoing relevance due to the powerful messages and ideas that readers are able to relate to. Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird {TKAMB} reflects Southern America in the 1930’s, the attitudes and perceptions of a small town called Maycomb, where Lee lives her young life through Scout who endures the negative implications that racial prejudice and class distinctions have on the environment as well as the importance of understanding and empathy. Throughout the novel, literary techniques effectively present important messages that resonate with audiences regardless of context, thus making this text classic.

In the realistic fictional novel To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, the author’s purpose was to entertain the audience about a topic that the audience needs to be informed upon; the cause and effects of racism and discrimination is a topic that Lee wanted to focus on. In this interesting novel, the author unravels a story from the perspective of a small child. The humor and seriousness in the novel blends together to create a wonderful novel that will be treasured for many years to come. The three themes focused on in this novel are growing up, prejudice, and courage.

Gail Sheehy once said, “If we don’t change, we don’t grow up. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.” Losing something close to us is the key to growing up, and Scout, the protagonist in To Kill A Mockingbird, is one of those characters. Scout and several other characters in the novel lose their innocence as they begin to see the prejudice and racism of the 1930’s South. All of these characters were innocent and unaware of what Maycomb was, and their innocence was taken away from them because of that. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee relates the theme of growing up and loss of innocence.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic novel, composed by Harper Lee in the early 1960’s, during the Great Depression. The novel presents White superiority to Black people, gender inequality and social classes as three dominant cultural assumptions that governed America, especially the Deep South, in the 20th century. These assumptions have been presented through the use of language, structure, characterisation and themes. The presence of the cultural assumptions and how they have been presented by the author has made the novel one of the most controversial stories of all time.

In the segregated American south of the 1930s, America did not value equality as it does today. This is the case in Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, which depicts such injustice in Scout Finch’s fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama. Though Scout narrates the story as an adult, the difficult events she shares are from her childhood. As Scout lives through the events of the unfair trial of an African American man falsely accused of raping a white woman, Scout comes more aware of the evils of her society. Maycomb County is just a section of the south where many central issues like racism, classism, and sexism are plagued all throughout the south in the early 20th century.

One of the themes in To Kill A Mockingbird is the fact that there is both good and evil in the world. In the very beginning of the book on page six Scout describes her town as “a tired old town” and seems to view her Maycomb as slightly boring but with good-natured people. By the end of the book she realizes that not everyone is as nice as she may think they are. There are many examples of this in the book and the first one is on page 83 when Jem and Scout discovered that somebody had filled up their knothole with cement. This made Jem especially upset because he had enjoyed the connection it had made with Boo Radley.

Set in the town of Maycomb County, this novel describes the journey of two young kids growing up in a small-minded town, learning about the importance of innocence and the judgement that occurs within. The individuals of Maycomb are very similar, with the exception of Arthur “Boo” Radley, the town’s recluse. Boo Radley has never been seen outside, and as a result of this, the children in the town are frightened of him and make up rumors about the monstrous things he allegedly does. This leaves the individuals in the town curious as to if Boo Radley really is a “malevolent phantom” like everyone assumes that he is or if he is just misunderstood and harmless. In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, Boo Radley is a saviour. This is