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To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird a novel by Harper Lee, takes place in a southern community in Alabama. The story tells about difficult time of 1930 s, where people were suffering from the Great Depression. The success of To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the most frequently read novels of the last hundred years; can be attributed to its powerful, universal themes. Several themes, encompassing, are that valuable lessons are learned in confronting those who are unlike ourselves and unlike those we know best what might be called people of difference. As Atticus tells You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view until you climb into his skin and walk around in it, which is a central development in the novels theme is the childrens growing ability to see members of their community in a new light. Atticus constant challenge to stereotype is undoubtedly his most persistent message.
Readers of the novel relive the same awakening that Atticus encourages in his children, as they are challenged to discard old, stock notions about certain character types. The challenge to stereotype in the novel is extraordinarily complex in its effect on its readers. The northern reader found old notions about the South and Southerners replaced by Lees realistic portraits. But southern readers also had their eyes opened. Many of them for the first time saw the African-Americans who had been living in their midst all their lives as complex characters. In a South where for generations integration meant chaos and disloyalty, many Southerners encountered in Atticus a kind of man who, although living and working among them for generations, had remained unseen and unknown.
There was something about them, no matter how much they cussed and drank and gambled and chewed; no matter how delectable they were, there was something about them that I instinctively liked... (Scout) Furthermore, Lees other characters were at variance with what her readers north and south had been taught and conditioned to accept: for example, the proper little girl, the prospective southern belle. Certainly, as Atticus says in his final summation to the jury, not all outsiders are necessarily good people. Bob Ewell is an example. But the children learn that some outsiders they encounter (like Mayella Ewell) deserve their pity, and that others (like Mrs.
Dubose) may be more complex than they at first discern. However, as Atticus also says, they all are human beings. They are also, in some way, victims. Another element of the theme discussed in this paper, an element that incorporates numerous other characters, is the sympathetic bond that the children begin to acknowledge between themselves and the people who are so different from them. Theyre certainly entitled to think that, and theyre entitled to full respect for their opinions (Atticus) Part of the process of Scouts learning to know Boo Radley and the black people in Maycomb is Scouts coming to feel just how much of an outsider she is herself.
As an avid reader, she is a freak in her first-grade class. As a tomboy, she is without little girl friends. As an independent-minded daughter of Atticus Finch, she is the object of brutal ridicule in the genteel ladies missionary society: Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.
Just standing on the Radley porch was enough. (Scout) The laws and codes the town of Maycomb professes and lives by are always complex and often contradictory. Folks dont like to have somebody around known more than they do. It aggravates em. Youre not gonna change any of them by talkin right, theyve got to want to learn themselves, and when they dont want to learn theres nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language. Part One of the book, which develops the childrens initiation into a world much uglier than the one they knew within the protective boundaries of their fathers house, is built on legalities and social codes, both law-abiding and lawbreaking: Scouts crime of entering the first grade already knowing how to read, the long-ago arrest of Boo Radley and his friends for their loud behavior in the public square and Boos second arrest for stabbing his father in the leg, the threat of lynching Tom Robinson, the charge of rape against him, the entailment's of Mr. Cunningham, the illegal trespassing of the children on the Radley property, and the breaking of the hunting and truancy laws by the Ewell's.
At the end of the story, Atticus and the sheriff break the law to protect Boo Radley from jail and from the community's attention after he has saved the childrens lives by killing Bob Ewell. A complication of this second theme is that even though the law should protect from evil and injustice the mockingbirds like Tom Robinson and Boo Radley and all those people of difference who are often victims of a homogeneous society, it has finally not been able to do so, mainly because hidden social codes contradict their stated legal and religious principles. For whatever reason, the law has been inadequate to protect Tom, who is sent to prison and gets shot. It has also been inadequate to protect Boo, who is imprisoned by his father after a minor youthful skirmish with the law and as Atticus said: Remember its a sin to kill a mockingbird. Typical attitudes toward race are especially evident in the towns reaction to Atticus defense of Tom Robinson and in the views of the missionary society. Glorification of the past can be seen in Aunt Alexandra's somewhat ridiculous pride in her ancestors, even a relative who took a shot at the president of the University of Alabama.
Suspicion of outsiders extends not only to the U. S. Presidents wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, but to the new young teacher from northern Alabama. Class snobbery is seen in Aunt Alexandra's obsession with what she regards as good or old families and her refusal to approve of Scouts playing with lower-class children. In summary, the two parts of the novel, which focus on the stories of two mockingbirds who are considered outlaws, are brought together through the various elements of the fiction to merge in a central theme of growing up to acknowledge the human bonds between ourselves and those so different from us.
The novel illustrates that the prejudice that people have towards others who are peaceful and kind can be wrong. Harper Lees in the novel emphasized that tensions between people motivated by misapprehension can be harmful.
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Research essay sample on Kill A Mockingbird Boo Radley
