The Themes In To Kill A Mockingbird

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The Themes In To Kill A Mockingbird Essay, Research Paper The Themes in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee The novel To Kill a Mockingbird succeeds in portraying the lifestyle of a relaxed southern town in the early 20th century. It shows the families, feelings, and bigotry of the time. There are three main themes in the novel, which are: justice is not blind, mob rule is not the way to solve things, and that you shouldn’t fear or resent something that hasn’t done anything to disturb life. These themes are true in the novel and are also true in everyday life. [Nelle] Harper Lee was born and raised in the heart of the south. Lee’s life and time period influences her writing. Like her father and Atticus Finch, Lee went on to study law. She left school in 1950 so that she

could go to New York and become a writer. “Her law studies proved to be ‘good training for a writer’ because they promote logical thinking and because law cases are an excellent source for story ideas” (Matuz 239). When her father became ill, she was forced to split her time between New York and Monroeville, Alabama. “In her native town she was surrounded by the setting of her novel; an old house where a mysterious recluse might live, the courtroom, and the lawyer’s office” (Matuz 239). This environment and her southern background proved to be the perfect combination for writing a story about life in a quiet town in Alabama. The only way to be a good writer is to write from experience, and since she lived most of her life in the setting of the story, her writing

proved to be good. The timing for the release of To Kill a Mockingbird could not have been more perfect. “In a time of the burgeoning civil rights movement, her book was met with popular acclaim and was later adapted for film” (Matuz 240). To Kill a Mockingbird to some extent is based on Lee’s childhood. “Scout was based upon Lee’s own upbringing?the mischievous Dill was recently found out to be based upon Lee’s childhood companion, Truman Capote” (Bryfonski 341). One of the ideas that Lee tried to put across in the novel was the fact that there will always be prejudice in one form or another. Harper Lee has written only one novel in her life, but she made that one count. Racism is still alive in modern society. No matter the amount of advances people have made to

end racism, there will always be a portion of the population that fears and hates anything that is different from their own. In our advanced, yet somewhat bigoted society, there is one place that is supposedly ‘color-blind’. That is the court system. Unless the jury is made up of non-humans, the court system will always be bigoted. In the novel, the jury is all white and all male, and when the defendant is somebody like Tom Robinson, he hasn’t got a chance. “Lee writes about a time when whites were the head honchos, and blacks were only counted as three-fifths, but that three fifths didn’t amount up to anything as far as rights went” (Magill 1680). Before the case even went to trial, Atticus knew that there was no way that he would win this. “‘Are you gonna win

this case Atticus? Nope.’” (Lee 147). No matter how much evidence Atticus had in his favor, even if there was video tape of the incident, the outcome of the case would have been exactly the same. The way that Atticus presented the information in a way that obviously made a few of the jurors think about the final ruling. “He was just happy that the jury deliberated for two hours instead of 5 minutes” (Lee 181). Racism seems to be the most highly concentrated in the south, which is odd seeing as how that’s where a very large percent of the black population is located at. “The way that she describes the southerners’ views and ideas about other races is not too different from some peoples’ views today” (Matuz 246). The jury’s decision was practically like mob