Kill a Mockingbird is a coming of age tale told from the perspective of a young girl in the Deep South. The perspective of the novel provides the reader with a fresh, innocent view of a world that is eventually stripped away of its gloss: the innocent eyes see a world that is riddled with injustice, lies, hatred, and evil -- yet in spite of the world of fallen nature that opens up before the girl there remains a hidden goodness that emerges to give the reader enough hope to carry on. This to me is the most interesting part of the novel -- that it begins in a state of innocence, watches as wickedness unfolds, and yet does not end on a cynical note or with a tone of despondency. On the contrary, it remains basking in the glory of Atticus Finch, the noble man whose efforts to save…...

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Works Cited

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. NY: McIntosh and Otis, 1988.

Abstract / Introduction
When writing a “To Kill a Mockingbird” essay, keep in mind Harper Lee’s 1960 novel is a Pulitzer Prize winning classic.  It was well-received at the time and is still loved and admired by new readers today.  One of the reasons the story is so successful is that Lee uses archetypes to present a world of good and evil that is easy for audiences to understand.  Atticus Finch is the archetypal hero, defending the good; Bob Ewell is the archetypal villain, pursuing evil at all costs even unto his own destruction.  In this article, we’ll take a look at a list of related topics that a student could use to write a paper on this book.  We’ll also provide a summary, analysis, quick description of characters, some good quotes, and a short list of themes.  Let’s get started!



Related Topics

Racism

The novel’s main conflict is embedded in the issue of…...

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Resource

Lee, Harper. (2006). To kill a mockingbird. New York :Harper Perennial Modern Classics,

Horton Foote and "To Kill a Mockingbird"
Horton Foote

Some aspects of a literary work are often revealed through the author's biography. Horton Foote is no exception, as his biography reveals a thoughtful Southern writer who could brilliantly capture life's conflicts, triumphs and defeats. Both honored and criticized, Foote remained a considerate chronicler of humanity whose work is still admired decades after publication and whose life is an inspiration.

Horton Foote (March 14, 1969 -- March 4, 2009) was a southerner, born and raised in harton, Texas (Hopwood). The remaining facts of his personal life are simple and straightforward. Barred from military service during orld ar II due to a hernia, Foote wrote in his early life but also held various menial jobs, including night elevator operator and bookstore clerk (Hampton). hen working as a bookstore clerk, he met Lillian Vallish (Hampton), they married in 1945 and Foote remained married to her until…...

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Works Cited

Baker, Frank W. "Film Study Guide for "To Kill a Mockingbird" - Seeing the Film Through the Lens of Media Literacy." 2003. Frank W. Baker Web site. Web. 29 March 2012.

Berardinelli, James. "To Kill a Mockingbird." 2012. Reel Views Web site. Web. 29 March 2012.

Crowther, Bosley. "To Kill a Mockingbird." 15 February 1963. New York Times Web site. Web. 29 March 2012.

Ebert, Roger. "To Kill a Mockingbird." 11 November 2001. Roger Ebert Web site. Web. 229 March 2012.

Kill Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel that discusses race relations and the justice system in American culture. Atticus is a lawyer who defends a black man on trial for raping a white woman. As a result, the community is against Atticus and his family. Symbolism is one way that author Harper Lee discusses the sensitive issues in the novel, which was published first in 1960. At that time, the Civil Rights Act had not been passed and blacks were discriminated against in society. The United States still practiced racial segregation, especially in the South, when Harper Lee wrote the book. In To Kill a Mockingbird, the author shows how black men were often accused and convicted of crimes they did not commit. The book also shows how difficult it was to eliminate racism, even when there were people who did not believe in it. Harper Lee's novel…...

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Works Cited

Dave, R.A. "To Kill a Mockingbird: Harper Lees Tragic Vision." DISCovering Authors. Online ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Discovering Collection. Gale. THORNTON TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL. 17 May. 2010 .

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird.

Meyer, Michael J. Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird: New Essays. Scarecrow, 2010.

Historical Context of the Film To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird starring Gregory Peck is a 1962 film adaptation of the 1960 novel by Harper Lee of the same name. The film was produced during a decade in which the Civil Rights Movement was reaching its zenith. Blacks had been protesting throughout the South, and Martin Luther King, Jr., would be arrested in Birmingham in 1963. There he would write his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail, justifying his actions at the front of the civil disobedience. Soon thereafter would be the march to Washington and then the Selma to Montgomery march. In short, race and desegregation was on everyone’s mind. The film gives special attention to the issue of race, even though it is set in the 1930s. The activities abuzz in the 1960s were surely reflected in the film’s story. For instance, the unjust accusation…...

Kill a Mockingbird
Racism leads to a prejudice that can ultimately affect one's fate through the road of life. Give an entire town reason to hate a certain type of man, and the town can immediately cast that man out for the very color of his skin. Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird explores this prejudice in a rural American town in the South. Lee's fictional creation of Maycomb, Alabama showcases a world where racism runs rampant, to the point of unfairness in the justice system, and opens the reader's eyes to a society where the color of one's skin determines one's town rank. This viewpoint is shown tremendously through the trial of Tom Robinson, the mockingbird who is accused of things he did not do; that he is a black man only makes him guilty.

Maycomb is fashioned much like that of an actual Southern town during the Great Depression;…...

obinson being black and the alleged victim of the rape being a white woman. Finch then states that "I have nothing but pity... For the chief witness whose evidence has been called into serious question... The defendant is not guilty, but somebody in this courtroom is" (Lee, 1988, 231). What Finch is attempting to say is that the true guilt lies on the white woman who has accused Mr. obinson of raping her, an accusation that is false. However, Finch then relates that "She has committed no crime" (Lee, 1988, 231), due to the fact that the statements of a white woman against those of a black man are always taken as truth by white southern society.
But then Finch throws a legal lasso over the court by declaring that the woman "must put Tom obinson away from her. Tom obinson was her daily reminder of what she did... She…...

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References

Cooper, Michael. (2005). "To Kill a Mockingbird -- a Book Review."

Ezine Articles. Internet. Retrieved at  http://ezinearticles.com/?to-Kill-a -

Mockingbird -- a-Book-Review&id=78097.

Lee, Harper. (1988). To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics.

By allowing his children to address him by hist first name, Atticus is dismantling one of the many traditions that serve to reinforce and perpetuate traditions that ultimately only serve to delegitimize the experience and perspective of certain people. This forces the viewer to take Scout's recollections and narration more seriously, because although they are the memories of a relatively young child, the viewer cannot help but treat them with a little more respect in recognition of the respect that Atticus, as the most idealized character in the entire film, grants them.
Thus, taking a cue from Atticus, Scout and Jem are respectful and relatively well-behaved, but are never hesitant to question or challenge attitudes and behaviors that they perceive as unjust or unjustified, and particularly in the case of Scout, are especially sensitive to behaviors that hypocritically contradict the ostensible moral standards of society. hile is worth noting that…...

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Works Cited

Edgerton, Gary. "A Visit to the Imaginary Landscape of Harrison, Texas: Sketching the Film

Career of Horton Foote." Literature/Film Quarterly 17.1 (1989): 2-12.

Foote, Horton. To kill a mockingbird, the screenplay: and related readings. Boston: McDougal

Littell, 1997.

Kill a Mockingbird
The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by author Harper Lee tells the story of a southern American family living in a rural community during the Great Depression. Atticus Finch is the single, widowed father of Jeremy, nicknamed Jem, and Jean Louise, nicknamed Scout. Many people of the town of Maycomb, Alabama dislike the Finches because Atticus is educated, because of the way that Atticus is raising his children and also for his attitudes towards segregation and racial equality. Mr. Finch tries very hard to teach his children right from wrong, to let them live and make some of their own mistakes, and to raise them as intelligent human beings who judge men by the quality of the character, not the color of their skin. Although Atticus Finch is not a perfect man, he is ultimately a good father and a very good man.

Most of the plot of…...

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Works Cited:

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1960. Print.

Kill a Mockingbird is one of the classical American novels that described the lynching of a black man accused of rape in Alabama during the 1930s. In this story, Tom Robinson is completely innocent, having been accused falsely by a white woman named Mayella Ewell. In reality, she was attracted to Tom and attempted to seduce him, but when her father found out he forced her to accuse him of rape. Atticus Finch knows the charges are false and defends Tom in court as best he can, knowing that the death sentence is inevitable in this case. As I reader, I can identify with the heroism of Atticus in the case, and sympathize with the injustice being done to Tom, who never has a chance of surviving once these charges have been made. Even the Ewell family, as degraded, violent and racist as they are should also be considered…...

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WORKS CITED

Bloom, Harold. Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Infobase Publishing, 2007.

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. HarperCollins, 1960, 1988.

McElaney, Hugh, "Just One Kind of Folks': The Normalizing Power of Disability in To Kill a Mockingbird in Michael J. Meyer (ed). Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird: New Essays. Scarecrow Press, 2010: 211-30.

Murphy, Mary McDonagh. Scout, Atticus, and Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of To Kill a Mockingbird. HarperCollins, 2010.

There are stereotypes on both sides of the racial issues raised in this book, and Lee tries to show that both of them are unfair and generalized, and that there were exceptions on both sides of the Black/white controversies and disagreements in the South.
Lee uses rape as a shocking way to bring racism to the surface, because sexual relations between a white woman and black man were even more volatile than just about any other kind of racial contact. The whites could never accept this, which is why it would be impossible for them to acquit Tom obinson at his trial. One critic sums up this mentality quite nicely. She writes, "Atticus Finch chided his son, Jem, for wondering why the jury did not give Tom obinson a prison sentence rather than the death sentence by saying, '[He's] a colored man, Jem. No jury in this part of the…...

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References

Bawer, Bruce. "The Other Sixties." The Wilson Quarterly Spring 2004: 64+.

Dorr, Lisa Lindquist. "Black-on-White Rape and Retribution in Twentieth-Century Virginia: 'Men, Even Negroes, Must Have Some Protection'." Journal of Southern History 66.4 (2000): 711.

Hertz, Karl V. "Seize the Teaching Moment in Behalf of Goodness." School Administrator Mar. 1995: 54.

Johnson, Claudia Durst. Understanding to Kill a Mockingbird a Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historic Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994.

Aunt Alexandra does not say "please" or "thank you," just a simple command forcing Cal into subservience. Cal has symbolized strength and authority throughout Scout's childhood, by acting as a mother figure in the Finch household. Scout has never seen Cal in such a low and submissive position

Equality is not approved, segregation is traditional, and hate is accepted. Maycomb citizens believe that Tom Robinson is not, and should not be a part of their lives or of their community Atticus, on the other hand, find faults with the towns' traditional views. Thinking logically and wisely, he knows he does not want his children to grow up with similar views. Atticus attacks old southern tradition by using the law. He lives by a traditional code in which justice is highly valued. He strongly believes that "in our courts all men are created equal"(p.205). Atticus knows that if there is one place…...

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Works Cited

Draper, James P, ed "Lee, Harper." World Literature Criticism: 1500 to present. vol. 4. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1992.

Sullivan Richard. "Engrossing First Novel of Rare Excellence." Chicago Sunday Tribune 17 July, 1960.

Johnson, Claudia Durst. Understanding to Kill a Mockingbird. Wesport:the Greenwood Publishing, Inc., 1994.

Ward, Leo. Commonweal, 9 December, 1960.

Kill a Mockingbird Scouts view innocence beginning, middle end a multi-Paragraph 2 chunk 1:2 ratio. I a requirement sheet faxed emailed . Thank Zoanne Gray [HIDDEN]
Scout's view of innocence in "To Kill a Mockingbird"

The central character in Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird," Scout, is initially an innocent girl. The fact that she does not associate the low social status of black people in Maycomb, Alabama, with them being discriminated by the white community is essential proving this. This contributes to the belief that she is innocent, considering that she cannot possibly consider that people's nature can be so immoral. Although her father taught her in regard to life and concerning what would be best for her to do, he did not relate to society's problems and to their seriousness. Her innocence is reflected through the fact that she is curious about who is leaving presents to her and…...

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Bibliography:

Lee, Harper and Bloom, Harold, To Kill a Mockingbird, (Infobase Publishing, 2010).

Kill a Mockingbird
Introduction to the novel. Some writers explain that To Kill a Mockingbird is about growing up in the South during the Jim Crow days. Others explain that the story is about racial injustice in the South. Actually, To Kill a Mockingbird is both a story about growing up in the South and about racial bigotry in Alabama in the 1930s, and it goes deeply into the issue of justice and fairness within the big picture of what it was like to be in the South during that era. The story takes place over a period of three years, and it is made interesting by the author Harper Lee because the main characters evolve quite a bit and the social scene at the time is well depicted. It is easy to look back at American history through this novel and condemn the South, and Alabama, for the racism,…...

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Works Cited

Lee, Harper. 1993. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: HarperCollins.

Lastly, both of the novels impart a common moral lesson to the readers. "There is more to it than meets the eye"... this is just one of the lessons that can be achieved from the said novels. Many of the characters in the novels are not what they truly seem to be. Like for example, most would write off Boo adley as a reclusive madman, Miss Dubose as a mean spirited old woman, and Dolphous aymond as a social deviant. These people are loathed by most, but these are not fair judgments (http://www.ezinearticles.com/?to-Kill-a-Mockingbird-a-Book-eview&id=78097,2006).

In both novels, it is also the characters that are able to ascertain the true nature of the other people's personality. Jem hates Ms. Dubose so much for what she says that he destroys her bushes. But when forced to spend time with her, he finds her a more acceptable person. And when Atticus points out that she…...

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References

Lee, Harper (1998) "To Kill a Mocking Bird." (Reissue Edition). Warner Books.

To Kill a Mocking Bird." 2006.  http://www.homework-online.com/tkamb/themes_racism-acceptance.asp 

To Kill a Mocking Bird." 2006.  http://www.ezinearticles.com/?to-Kill-a-Mockingbird-a-Book-Review&id=78097

The first thing you need to do is understand what a theme is.  A theme is an idea in a movie.  Many people think of themes as the main idea, but a movie may have a central theme and several other themes.  If you are not sure how to identify a movie’s theme, think about the things in a movie that you want to talk about after you watch it or that leave you thinking about the movie. While themes can spur a number of different discussions, you should be able to describe the them concisely, generally....

To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most beloved books and movies of all time, making it no surprise that it has become a popular theatre production.  There are so many issues that arise in the novel, movie, and screenplay that even seemingly insignificant things, such as Atticus allowing his children to call him by his first name, take on a significance in the story.  If you were working on a narrative criticism or essay, you would highlight that significance.  However, in outlining an act from a play, you do not....

1. The symbolism of the caged bird in Maya Angelou's autobiographical work, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."
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3. Analyzing the oppression and confinement of women in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper."
4. The symbolism of the birdcage in Henrik Ibsen's play, "A Doll's House," in relation to gender roles and societal expectations.
5. Comparing the experiences of the caged birds in Richard Wright's novel, "Native Son," and Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel, "The Handmaid's Tale."
6. Exploring the theme of captivity and liberation in Jean Rhys's....

1. The Role of Courage in To Kill a Mockingbird

2. Racism and Injustice in To Kill a Mockingbird

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4. Character Analysis of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird

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6. The Importance of Empathy in To Kill a Mockingbird

7. Social Class and Prejudice in To Kill a Mockingbird

8. Atticus Finch: A Heroic Figure in To Kill a Mockingbird

9. Themes of Childhood and Maturity in To Kill a Mockingbird

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