To Kill a Mockingbird

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Behrouz Nezafat 10S

To Kill a Mockingbird Coursework

Do you think To Kill a Mockingbird is a depressing or an optimistic novel?

        “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.” This is how the novel written by Harper Lee in the 1930s starts, this awkward beginning grabs our attention before introducing us to the horrendous conditions in the 1930s. Lee offers us an awkward beginning introducing a first person narrator and other main character of the novel. If we were only to judge the novel by its first sentence, we would think that the novel narrates an adventure that Scout and Jem experience throughout the time narrated. However, as the novel and time progresses we can see how both depressing and optimistic events are narrated through Lee’s use of Scout as the narrator of the story in the first person.

        Throughout the novel, Harper Lee presents different depressing events including not only the trial, but many other events which I will also analyse. Poverty in southern USA in the 1930s was very common. This poverty is display in the novel by the use of lower class citizens such as the Ewell. In the trail, the reader sees the Ewell social class and they realize how poor they were. Jem also call them trash when explaining to Scout how there are four types of folks. The fact that Harper Lee exhibits this poverty in the novel, and the fact that she uses Mayella to describe her life in the trail shows a depressing event of the novel as the reader will then feel sorry for the Ewells. “The witness frowned as if puzzled. ‘Friends?’ ” (Chapter 18, page 189) Harper Lee wants us to feel sympathy for these citizens to portray how poverty stroke citizens in the 1930s.

        From my personal point of view, Harper Lee wants to describe the prejudices and conditions faced in the 1930s. After the Roaring Twenties, Lee portrays the change in the state of mind and in the conditions in which people from different social classes lived particularly focusing in Alabama, USA. Due to the Wall Street Crash, many people were bankrupt and they had to live in poverty attending to breadlines. As shown in the novel, everyone was affected by the Great Depression, and especially the black society was badly hit. The black community of southern USA were treated as third class citizens and had a lack of rights. Furthermore, blacks at this time were usually sharecroppers and had to leave the land with the dust ball, therefore affecting their attitudes towards life and society on a whole as they became even poorer.  

        Although, at first sight this lack of rights black people experienced shows inequality and a depressing side of the story, the fact that many members of the black community like ‘Calpurnia’, Atticus’ maid, acted as a bridge between the white and the black society, giving the reader some optimism. It gives the reader this happy feeling as it makes it deduce how one day in the future, the black society will be equal to the whites thanks to this bridges. The fact that in Maycomb there were also members of the white society, such as Judge Taylor willing to help black individuals also shows optimism. “Did it ever strike you that Judge Taylor naming Atticus to defend that boy was no accident?” However, I will discuss these in more detail later.

        Harper Lee studied law at the University of Alabama. During her course, she personally experienced the inequality and discrimination which occurred between both communities. From my point of view, I think it was this feeling which leads her to write such a novel in which she identifies herself with Scout and also identifies Dill with her best friend for example. Harper Lee’s father was also a lawyer and she may have been under pressure or motivated to fulfil a decent career leading us to a pessimist theme of pressure experienced by the younger generation like Jem and Scout in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

        Throughout the novel different themes are described which gives the reader a feeling of both optimism and pessimism. One of the biggest themes portrayed in the novel is the theme of prejudice. Lee presents the theme of prejudices in two main forms, prejudice towards groups and individual prejudice. One of the most significant themes shown in the novel is racial prejudice. The main obvious case of racial prejudice is the way in which Tom Robinson is treated. Tom Robinson is a minor character who is not explored in depth. However, he is important in the sense that he carries the themes and issues the novel explores like racial prejudice, for example. Tom is a traditional and religious black man who is considered honourable but also a lonely character with a disability which makes him an outcast. “Didn’t Mr. Ewell run you off the place, boy?” (Chapter 19, page 204) By the use of the word ‘boy’ when Mr. Gilmer refers to Tom, shows the lack of respect an educated lawyer like Mr. Gilmer shows to the witness. However, many other cases of racial prejudice take place throughout the novel.

        One case of racial prejudice can be found in the way in which Aunt Alexandra treats Calpurnia. Calpurnia is one of the main characters of the novel. She is member of the black society, but also looks after Jem and Scout. Even though she is black, she is able to read and write and even teaches other black members of her community to read and write, as in order to attempt to bridge both societies together the blacks needed to be educated. “There wasn’t a school even when he was boy. I made him learn, though” (Chapter12, page 131). Harper Lee not only uses Calpurnia as the representative of the situation of the black society, she is used as a bridge that links both societies together. Atticus also considers Calpurnia as a member of the family and she is like a mother figure for both children, as Lee tells us how the Finches consist of only Atticus, Scout and Jem. Therefore, the consideration of Calpurnia, their household, to act as a mother presents an optimistic view as it shows how the nuclear family was important for the Finches. The importance which these three members of a respected family like the Finch family gives to a black women who is supposed to just do the household tasks also shows optimism as it shows how some members of the black society were integrated within the white society, and also exposes how the member of the white society liked this and were beginning to accept all races equal. However, a depressing element is shown in the attitude Aunt Alexandra has towards Calpurnia as unlike her brother and nephews, she does not consider Calpurnia a member of the family even thought Calpurnia always worked for the Finch family. On the other hand Calpurnia is merely considered a maid rather than a mother to Aunt Alexandra. “I’ve spent my days working for the Fiches or the Bufords, an’ I moved to Maycomb when your daddy and your mamma married.” (Chapter 12, page 131) Just in Aunt Alexandra’s arrival to the Fiches house, she shows her negative attitude towards Calpurnia. “Put my bag in the front bedroom Calpurnia, was the first thing Aunt Alexandra said” (Chapter 13, page 132). Her first sentence after arriving at the Finch house has a very imperative tone towards Calpurnia. From her sentence, we can immediately see how she has no respect to Calpurnia and even how she thinks she is from a higher class so she should not show any equality towards her. This negative attitude towards a black woman considered by a member of the Finch family gives a reader a depressing sense, as this attitude makes the reader suggests that for certain white people things will never change.

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        Prejudice towards different social classes within Maycomb is also presented in the novel as for example when the life of the Ewells is the described, or when Scouts learns about the different ‘types of folks’ within the town. According to Jem, there are four types of folks in the world. There are the “ordinary kind like us and the neighbours” (Chapter 23, page 232), there are the “kind like the Cunninghams, the kind like the Ewell down at the dump and the Negroes” (Chapter 23, page 232). The fact that  a boy who is nearly thirteen is able to himself ...

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