To Kill a Mockingbird Literary Analysis PDF

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Literary Analysis of well-known novel To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee in the 60s...

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To Kill a Mockingbird: Literary Analysis In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee conveys that discrimination is inevitable through her establishment of context, perspective, and expression of the theme. Harper Lee connects context to discrimination by setting it in a small town in Alabama in the 1930s, a time and place where racism was extremely prevalent. This is because the ideas behind Slavery and the Civil War of the 1860s were still commonly shared ones. The civil rights movement of the 1950-60s is right around the corner and even this tiny town, revolution is slowly starting to rise. An example of this would be when Atticus just accepted the job of being Tom’s lawyer and people were insulting him and his family: " ‘Scout,’ said Atticus, ‘nigger-lover is just one of those terms that don't mean anything—like snot-nose. It's hard to explain—ignorant, trashy people use it when they think somebody's favoring Negroes over and above themselves. It's slipped into usage with some people like ourselves when they want a common, ugly term to label somebody.’ ‘You aren't really a nigger-lover, then, are you?’ ‘I certainly am. I do my best to love everybody... I'm hard put, sometimes—baby, it's never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn't hurt you.’ " (Lee, 107-109). This piece of evidence exhibits just how different Atticus was from the rest of Maycomb’s population and that he was one of the first signs of the civil rights movement. It is easy to comprehend this from this extract of To Kill a Mockingbird because he explains to Scout how the derogatory terms that their family was being called was an obvious sign of ignorance and how he always puts love over skin color. This proves that the context in this book leaves the reader believing that discrimination is inevitable because even though Atticus is committing a good deed by helping another innocent person in

danger, people still discriminate, even in this moment of extreme delicacy. A quote that better explains the context of this book would be when Atticus was practicing and trying to become a lawyer: “Atticus practiced economy more than anything” (Lee, 5). This patently displays an allusion to the Great Depression of the 1930s, which is the backdrop of the setting of Lee’s novel. Scout narrates that when her father began his law practice in Maycomb, during his first five years he was practicing economy more than law. This hints that Atticus probably became a lawyer because it paid well and he needed the money, not because it was his actual passion. Another quote that connects context to discrimination would be: “Secretly, Miss Finch, I'm not much of a drinker, but you see they could never, never understand that I live like I do because that's the way I want to live” (Lee, 268). This quote reveals just how extreme discrimination was back then; a white man (Mr. Raymond) had to pretend to be a drunk so that the townspeople won’t object to his black mistress. This would never occur in this modern-day society because nowadays people are much more open-minded and discrimination is not allowed anymore since everyone is free to do and marry whomever they want in most countries. This discernibly proves that the context in this book leaves the reader believing that discrimination is inevitable because Maycomb was a bigoted, close-minded small town and, especially in the 1930s, was very racist. Harper Lee addresses discrimination through perspective by presenting the readers with different perspectives with the use of dialogue while keeping a consistent point of view: Scout’s. For example, Tom Robinson was a victim of severe discrimination just because of certain prejudices different people had on people of color in general: “There’s something in our world that makes men lose their heads—they couldn’t be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it’s a

white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins” (Lee 331). This tiny extract from To Kill a Mockingbird exhibits the perspective of Atticus Finch, Tom’s lawyer. He explains how prejudice on the side of the jury, and court in general, is unfair but inevitable due to them growing up in a bigoted context. In court, all decisions must be made based on evidence, a fair trial, and the common law system. Pre-made decisions about a person or a sort of group of people are prohibited because they result in an unjust conviction, exactly like the one Tom unfortunately received. The various perspectives that the people of the jury had on Tom made it very hard for Atticus to prove him guilty, even with more than sufficient evidence to support his point. Another quote that exhibits the discrimination through different perspectives in this small southern town would be when Lula said this: “You ain’t got no business bringin’ white chillun here—they got their church, we got our’n. It is our church, ain’t it, Miss Cal?” (Lee, 158). Differentiating from the first quote, this one is from the perspective of a woman of color. After so many people discriminating against her because of their unexplained prejudices, people of color also start to discriminate against white people for protection. The language used in this extract made it clear that people of color talked very differently from white people. Harper Lee made it easy to understand who was a person of color and who was not by presenting us with slang and made-up words, making it easy to understand that these people were not very educated, maybe even illiterate. This is because black people either had to go to different, worse schools than white people, some didn’t even go to school because they were not allowed, another fact which proves the point of prejudices interfering with people’s perspective about other people. In this book, derogatory terms are used against people of color to further discriminate against them. Another example of this would be something that Mr. Ewell said: “I seen that

black ni**er yonder ruttin' on my Mayella" (Lee, 231). Without a doubt, this quote arrays how Mr. Ewell views people of color as in this particular case Tom Robinson; worthless. This is not the only example of derogatory terms in this book, they are consistent. This is because Harper Lee wanted to portray that discrimination was not a rare thing, more like an everyday occurrence, and that white people viewed black people as less than them for all the lies about them that they were fed during their childhood. This visibly demonstrates that the perspective in this book leaves the reader believing that discrimination is inevitable because it displays the different viewpoints of the inhabitants of Maycomb who are involved with the Tom Robinson case. This helps us further comprehend the actions or decisions of the characters and the reason behind this hatred towards people of color. The main theme of the book To Kill a Mockingbird is that harming innocent or good people, in general, is a terrible thing and should never be done. This is also where the book got its name from: “ ‘Your father’s right,’ she said ‘Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s garden, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a Mockingbird ” (Lee, 117). In this quote, Ms. Maudie is trying to explain to Scout the reason for which killing a mockingbird is a sin, which is because they do absolutely nothing but good and therefore there is no reason to kill them. This serves as a metaphor throughout the whole book with the mockingbird being Tom Robinson and the mockingbird killer/hunter being the all-white jury unfairly and racistly convicting him of a false accusation of rape. This is because Tom Robinson never harmed anyone in Maycomb, was always quiet and respectful, and only did good deeds to Mayella but, since he was black, the jury still decided to condemn him even though all evidence

pointed towards him not being able to have done it. There is only one more mockingbird in this book, his name is Boo Radley; a mysterious man which seldom comes out of his house unless it’s to help someone else: “Atticus believes Jem killed Ewell in self-defense, but Tate makes him realize that Boo Radley stabbed Ewell and saved both children’s lives. The men agree to claim that Ewell fell on his knife to save Boo the spectacle of a trial” (Lee, 365). Although Boo is considered strange, he shows his human kindness when he protects Jem and Scout. Scout sees a human side to Boo. The quote stated above doubtlessly demonstrates that he is the other mockingbird because even though he only did good by saving the lives of two children, he has to hide it because people might punish him for it. This proves that the theme in this book leaves the reader believing that discrimination is inevitable because of Tom Robinson and being completely and utterly harmless but still getting discriminated against for his skin color....