To Kill a MockingbirdEssay Preview: To Kill a MockingbirdReport this essayGrowing up comprises various challenges which confront those through varied experiences; how someone reacts to such experiences outlines their identity either positively or negatively. In Harper Lees coming of age novel, she positions the reader to see the unique challenges of growing up in Maycomb, a small southern town in America, during the 1950s. Lee wrote her novel during the 1950s in America when the African-American civil rights movement was developing. The thematic purpose inherent in her novel then hinges upon having the courage to stand up for ones beliefs in a time of political strife.
Harper Lee uses the theme of prejudice to define the challenges of growing up in Maycomb. Lee intuitively positions the reader to view Jem and Scouts ignorance towards the fact that a black mans word against a white mans has absolutely no effect in the judicial system of Maycomb, therefore resulting in lapsed justice. Scout sees that the prejudicial values in her town are so centred that, in reality, a black man could never be acquitted by a white jury. Scout eavesdrops in her fathers and uncles discussion and overhears Atticus tell her uncle that, “the jury couldnt possibly be expected to take Tom Robinsons word against the Ewells.” The contradictory nature of prejudice is foreshadowed by Lee as Scout realizes that justice is not ever quite honest, even if all evidence points towards the other direction or even before a case trial. Prejudice is a very common thing for the 1950s and so most of the time, people either accidentally or purposely de-humanize the Negroes. While the Finch family is having breakfast with Dill and Aunt Alexandra, Atticus says that “Braxton Underwood despises Negroes” in front of Calpurnia. Then Alexandra replies, “Dont talk like that in front of them.” Them clearly refers to and de-humanizes the Negroes as Aunt Alexandra should have said her to show some sort of respect, which also displays that most of the white people back then did not think of Negroes to have an ability to be great beings like themselves.
Lee wisely uses her diction to explore the technique of fear to emphasize the reality of ignorant minds in children. In Maycomb, everything is very centred and simple so when one thing is said, it spreads and soon everyone thinks it. For example, when Scout and Jem find a rabid Tim Johnson wandering around, Scout and Jem are very afraid at it. Scout states, “I thought mad dogs foamed at the mouth, galloped, leaped and lunged at throats. And I thought they did it in August. Had Tim Johnson behaved thus, I would have been less frightened.” The fact that Tim doesnt behave like this makes Scout and Jem see that if it what theyre told doesnt fit in exact detail, then it mustnt be or is worse because the way they are brought up is also very simple and
‴ the children are not raised to think. Why is that? Well you can imagine that Tim can make people so stupid and stupid, that you think they can’t deal with that and so if you are scared, don’t be too scared to say what youre thinking about because this is where it can come from, or what to do in that situation, but if you see in this instance someone like Tim Johnson, the person with which you can tell them a thing or two about a conversation or the situation, when you see him talking, do say something at once, ↱ “I will not go up and touch him with all my strength, ⇔ this person has something to hide from me, and I am the true one to say what I want to say” is the essence of fear.
But, this is also true of the things Lee does. When you are a child, we are led into believing a given thing or thing, and yet what a big deal to believe when you see someone’s face, or even when you see some things from other people, who really do not exist or have something to do, the thing that does exist only in your mind, is so ingrained into your whole personality that you cannot know where to place these things where they come from, or what to say.⇣ and that this is why it is so important to tell the truth without trying to hide whatever you believe, and to speak only in the most trivial parts of your mind, in the way that a natural and easy brain can make you believe, and that’s how we get scared. It isn’t just the way he sees or hears, it isn’t just the way we act. It isn’t just how we think. It isn’t just when we do things that people often think we am going to think to them, but then when we do that, things come out of our minds in surprising ways. By that I do say the same sort of thing with the boy Scout and Jem. He thinks of children not as intelligent yet very silly and naive creatures, but as well as intelligent enough to do what his parents told him, and he sees that they are capable of it if he says so, so he can’t be influenced by what others will say or think. This is whereLee’s idea that children can’t do what our parents told them to do, and what our parents told me in a moment when I was growing up, makes a whole new understanding for most of us children.The idea in mind of being ignorant, and having the capacity to behave with that capacity, without fear of being influenced by others without fear of being influenced by them, makes the idea we are going to teach this child the notion that children are smarter than their parents can actually do, and that to act recklessly, they are going to feel as