To Kill a Mocking Bird
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- Category: English: Novels
- Date Submitted: 11/04/2015 01:34 AM
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To Kill A Mocking Bird
Harper Lee’s award winning novel To Kill A Mocking Bird written in the 1960’s recounts the childhood from the perspective of protagonist Scout Finch, who narrates her life and the struggles that surrounded her when growing up in the 1930’s. Through the major concepts of prejudice, racism and courage, Lee motivates readers to learn many valuable lessons that is embedded in the novel’s storyline which can be applied to our own lives. The purpose of this essay will be to analyse how Lee has utilised language and structural features to communicate important messages and explore the key ideas of the novel.
Prejudice is the preconceived judgement used in a negative matter towards a person. The concept of prejudice is explored throughout the novel from the crafted perspectives of Maycomb. One of the characters affected by prejudice in the novel is Dolphus Raymond. In order to keep him and family safe from the discrimination of Maycomb, he pretends to be drunk as he has married and has had ‘mixed children’ with an African American women. This can be seen when Mr Raymond explains to Scout “Oh yes… some folks don't like the way I live…I try to give em’ a reason you see. It helps folks if they can latch onto a reason…”. The use of the device gaps and silences reveals to the reader that Mr Raymond has thought of an intelligent way into fooling the town to believe that he is drunk the whole time. This example is important as it displays the measures Mr Raymond has taken in order to have his inter-racial relationship and children accepted by society. The notion of prejudice is demonstrated through the development of the character Boo and Nathan Radley. As the novel progresses, Lee successfully reverses the negative representation of Boo Radley that was manufactured by the town of Maycomb. This is evident when Jem recounts to Scout ““When i went back for breeches- they were all in a triangle when i was getting’ out if em’ I couldn't get loose. When...
Harper Lee’s award winning novel To Kill A Mocking Bird written in the 1960’s recounts the childhood from the perspective of protagonist Scout Finch, who narrates her life and the struggles that surrounded her when growing up in the 1930’s. Through the major concepts of prejudice, racism and courage, Lee motivates readers to learn many valuable lessons that is embedded in the novel’s storyline which can be applied to our own lives. The purpose of this essay will be to analyse how Lee has utilised language and structural features to communicate important messages and explore the key ideas of the novel.
Prejudice is the preconceived judgement used in a negative matter towards a person. The concept of prejudice is explored throughout the novel from the crafted perspectives of Maycomb. One of the characters affected by prejudice in the novel is Dolphus Raymond. In order to keep him and family safe from the discrimination of Maycomb, he pretends to be drunk as he has married and has had ‘mixed children’ with an African American women. This can be seen when Mr Raymond explains to Scout “Oh yes… some folks don't like the way I live…I try to give em’ a reason you see. It helps folks if they can latch onto a reason…”. The use of the device gaps and silences reveals to the reader that Mr Raymond has thought of an intelligent way into fooling the town to believe that he is drunk the whole time. This example is important as it displays the measures Mr Raymond has taken in order to have his inter-racial relationship and children accepted by society. The notion of prejudice is demonstrated through the development of the character Boo and Nathan Radley. As the novel progresses, Lee successfully reverses the negative representation of Boo Radley that was manufactured by the town of Maycomb. This is evident when Jem recounts to Scout ““When i went back for breeches- they were all in a triangle when i was getting’ out if em’ I couldn't get loose. When...