Suggested Essay Topics A+ Student Essay Summary Key Questions and Answers Summary Key Questions and Answers. Page 5. Page 1 Page 2 Page Ace your assignments with our guide to To Kill a Mockingbird! BUY NOW. Popular pages: To Kill a Mockingbird. Character List Use this CliffsNotes To Kill a Mockingbird Study Guide today to ace your next test! Get free homework help on Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird: book summary, chapter summary and analysis, quotes, essays, and character analysis courtesy of CliffsNotes. In To Kill a Mockingbird, author Harper Lee uses memorable characters to explore Civil Rights and racism in the segregated southern United Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. The Coexistence of Good and Evil. The most important theme of To Kill a Mockingbird is the book’s exploration of the moral nature of human beings—that is, whether people are essentially good or essentially evil. The novel approaches this question by dramatizing Scout and Jem’s transition from a perspective
To Kill a Mockingbird: Themes | SparkNotes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. Even Jem is victimized to an extent by his discovery of the evil of racism during and after the trial. The moral voice of To Kill a Mockingbird is embodied by Atticus Finch, who is virtually unique in the novel in that he has experienced and understood evil without losing his faith in the human capacity for goodness. Atticus understands that, rather than being simply creatures of good or creatures of evil, most people have both good and bad qualities.
The important thing is to appreciate the good qualities and understand the bad qualities by treating others with sympathy and to kill a mockingbird essay questions to see life from their perspective. He tries to teach this ultimate moral lesson to Jem and Scout to show them that it is possible to live with conscience without losing hope or becoming cynical.
In this way, Atticus is able to kill a mockingbird essay questions admire Mrs. Her newfound ability to view the world from his perspective ensures that she will not become jaded as she loses her innocence. This theme is explored most powerfully through the relationship between Atticus and his children, as he devotes himself to instilling a social conscience in Jem and Scout.
Differences in social status are explored largely through the overcomplicated social hierarchy of Maycomb, the ins and outs of which constantly baffle the children. Country farmers like the Cunninghams lie below the townspeople, to kill a mockingbird essay questions, and the Ewells rest below the Cunninghams.
But the black community in Maycomb, despite its abundance of admirable qualities, squats below even the Ewells, enabling Bob Ewell to make up for his own lack of importance by persecuting Tom Robinson. These rigid social divisions that make up so much of the adult world are revealed in the book to be both irrational and destructive.
For example, Scout cannot understand why Aunt Alexandra refuses to let her consort with young Walter Cunningham. Discussions about prejudice in general, and racism in particular, to kill a mockingbird essay questions, are at the heart of To Kill a Mockingbird.
Conflicts over racism drive some of the most compelling and memorable scenes in the novel. Racial conflict causes the two dramatic deaths that occur in the story. On one level, To Kill a Mockingbird represents a simplistic and moralistic view of racial prejudice. White people who are racist are bad, and white people who are not racist are good.
Atticus risks his reputation, his position in the community, and ultimately the safety of his children because he is not racist, and therefore good.
Bob Ewell falsely accuses a black man of rape, spits on Atticus publicly, and attempts to murder a child because he is racist, and therefore bad. To Kill a Mockingbird does attempt to look at some of the complexities of living in a racist society. The treatment of prejudice in To Kill a Mockingbird is not only simplistic in terms of morality, but also in terms of perspective. To read the novel one would think racism is a problem that exists between educated, financially stable, moral white people, and ignorant, dirt poor, vicious white people.
The black characters in the novel are rarely given voice on the topic of racism. When they do speak it is largely in terms of gratitude for the good white people of town and not in terms of anger, frustration, resistance, or hostility towards the culture of racism.
When the author does present black characters as trying to resist racist abuses, she shows them doing so to kill a mockingbird essay questions avoiding or retreating, as when Tom Robinson attempts to escape from prison or when Helen Robinson walks through the woods to avoid going past the Ewell house.
Black characters in the novel never respond to racism actively and barely respond to it reactively. When a black character is critical of white people, as when Lula challenges Calpurnia for bringing Jem and Scout to the black church, she is ostracized by the rest of the black community, suggesting her complaints against white people are unfounded.
Though the trial of Tom Robinson takes up only about one tenth of the book, it represents the narrative center around which the rest of the novel revolves. This trial seems intended as an indictment of the legal systemat the least as it exists of within the town of Maycomb.
Procedurally, the judge carries out the trial properly. The lawyers select the jury through normal means, and both the defense and prosecution to make their cases. But the all-white jury does not interpret the evidence according to the law, but rather applies their own prejudices to determine the outcome of the case.
At the same time, Atticus believes the law should be applied differently to different people. There are two lies at the heart of To Kill a Mockingbird. Mayella Ewell says that Tom Robinson raped her, and Heck Tate says that Bob Ewell accidentally stabbed himself. The first lie destroys an innocent man who occupies a precarious social position in Maycomb because of his race, to kill a mockingbird essay questions.
The second lie prevents the destruction of an innocent man who occupies a precarious social position in Maycomb because of his extreme reclusiveness. Taken together, the two lies reflect how deception can be used to harm or to protect. The two lies also reveal how the most vulnerable members of society can be the most deeply affected by the stories people tell about them. Social status also determines who is allowed to tell a lie. During the trial, prosecutor Horace Gilmer confronts Tom Robinson, asking Tom if he is accusing Mayella Ewell of lying.
Even though Tom knows full well that Mayella is lying, he cannot say so because in Maycomb the lies of a white woman carry more weight than the truth told by a black man. Ace your assignments with our guide to To Kill a Mockingbird! Want study tips sent straight to your inbox?
Sign up for our weekly newsletter! Search all of SparkNotes Search Suggestions Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select. A Streetcar Named Desire Crime and Punishment Dr. Jekyll and Mr. No Fear Literature Translations Literature Study Guides Glossary of Literary Terms How to Write Literary Analysis.
Biography Biology Chemistry Computer Science Drama Economics Film Health History Math Philosophy Physics Poetry Psychology Short Stories Sociology US Government and Politics. SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Summary Plot Overview Video Plot Summary Key Questions and Answers What Does the Ending Mean?
Character List Scout Finch Atticus Finch Jem Finch Boo Radley Calpurnia. Themes Motifs Symbols Plot Analysis Protagonist Antagonist Setting Genre Allusions Style Point of View Tone Foreshadowing Key Facts Metaphors and Similes Is justice achieved in To Kill a Mockingbird?
Important Quotes Explained Quotes by Theme Prejudice Law Lying Courage Community Quotes by Section Chapter 1 Chapters 2—3 Chapters 4—6 Chapters 7—8 Chapters 9—11 Chapters Chapters 14—15 Chapters 16—17 Chapters 18—19 Chapters 20—22 Chapters 23—25 Chapters 26—27 Chapters 28—31 Quotes to kill a mockingbird essay questions Character Scout Atticus Jem Boo Bob Quotes by Symbol Mockingbirds Boo Radley Quotes by Setting Maycomb, Alabama.
Context The Scottsboro Boys Trial To Kill a Mockingbird and the Southern Gothic Movie Adaptations Full Book Quiz Section Quizzes Part 1: Chapter 1 Part 1: Chapters Part 1: Chapters Part 1: Chapters To kill a mockingbird essay questions 1: Chapters Part 2: Chapters Part 2: Chapters Part 2: Chapters Part 2: Chapters Part 2: Chapters Part 2: Chapters Part 2: Chapters Part 2: Chapters Character List Analysis of Major Characters Themes, to kill a mockingbird essay questions, Motifs, and Symbols Study Questions Suggestions for Further Reading Companion Texts.
Main Ideas Themes. The Existence of Social Inequality Differences in social status are explored largely through the overcomplicated social hierarchy of Maycomb, to kill a mockingbird essay questions, the ins and outs of which constantly baffle the children. Prejudice Discussions about prejudice in general, and racism in particular, are at the heart of To Kill a Mockingbird.
Law Though the trial of Tom Robinson takes up only about one tenth of the book, it represents the narrative center around which the rest of the novel revolves. Lying There are to kill a mockingbird essay questions lies at the heart of To Kill a Mockingbird. Next section Motifs. Test your knowledge To kill a mockingbird essay questions the Themes, Motifs, and Symbols Quick Quiz.
Take a study break Every Shakespeare Play Summed Up in a Quote from The Office. Take a study break Honest Names for All the Books on Your English Syllabus. To Kill a Mockingbird SparkNotes Literature Guide EBOOK EDITION Ace your assignments with our guide to To Kill a Mockingbird! Popular pages: To Kill a Mockingbird. Take a Study Break.
Video Sparknotes: Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird Summary
, time: 7:25To Kill a Mockingbird Key Questions: Why does the jury find Tom guilty? | SparkNotes
Suggested Essay Topics A+ Student Essay Summary Key Questions and Answers Summary Key Questions and Answers. Page 5. Page 1 Page 2 Page Ace your assignments with our guide to To Kill a Mockingbird! BUY NOW. Popular pages: To Kill a Mockingbird. Character List To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird one of the best-loved stories of all time, is a novel by Harper Lee published in It was immediately successful, winning the Pulitzer Prize, and has become a classic of modern American literature Free-Response Questions. Then write a well-developed essay in which you analyze how Eliot portrays these two characters and their complex relationship as husband and wife. You may wish to consider such literary devices To Kill a Mockingbird The Trial STOP END OF EXAM. Title: ap11_frq_english_literature Author: ETS
No comments:
Post a Comment