What has been established so far in 'To Kill A Mocking Bird'?

Claire Fooks 9Y

What has been established so far in ‘To Kill A Mocking Bird’?

In your answer you must consider two of the following ideas/themes: education, racism, family relationships, victimisation, power vs. strength. You should deal with:

Each topic methodically
Explain how Harper Lee explores these theme using character, story and language
Explore any relationships between themes you choose
Cite a range of specific and relevant textual evidence

In this essay I am going to focus on the themes of education and family relationships. Both of these play an important part in the book and can be linked together through many various ways. Harper Lee has managed to create a strong image of both the themes I am going to use by using many different characters.

I will start by looking at how Harper Lee explores the theme of education. Harper Lee uses many different characters to explore this theme, many of them are from when Jean Louise starts at school. Some of these characters include Miss Caroline, Jean’s teacher, who does not know the traditions people have in Maycomb, ‘Miss Caroline is introducing a new way of teaching’. Walter Cunningham, who has no money and has extremely poor hygiene, ‘…he had hookworms. People caught hookworms going bare foot in barnyards and hog wallows’. Also Burris Ewell, who only goes to school on the first day of each year and is also very unclean, ‘to get rid of the - er - cooties Burris’. All these different characters Harper Lee has used create a feeling of confusion, as readers are overwhelmed by all the different characters, and trying to remember them all. This then reminds the reader about the education and school in the book as they read through the story because they try and remember all the characters.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Harper Lee also uses the story and language to explore the theme of education. In the story so far she has only one section specifically about education, chapters two, three and the opening of chapter four. However school is mentioned throughout the story, when Jean mentions things about school, for example, ‘released from school thirty minutes earlier…’ In the story so far other aspects of education have been mentioned, as some people in Maycomb are not very educated and this has been mentioned a few times. From the language used we know that Jean is very literate, as the language in the book is not basic like what would be expected, from a child her age, for example when she says, ‘two live oaks stood at the edge of the Radley’s lot’, most children of Jean’s age would say, ‘two acorn trees grew at the side of the Radley’s lot’.

I will now look at family relationship from the story so far. There are many different families in the book and they are all known by their surname, the Finchs, the Ewells, the Cunninghams, the Radleys and many more. Also some of the characters that do not play a major part in the story are known by their surname, Miss Maudie and Mrs Dubose. I think the reason Harper Lee did this was so that the reader can instantly know what a person is like while reading the book. If after reading about Walter Cunningham, you later read about his father you would have some idea of what he is like. It is also easier to remember a group of people by their surname, than their forename, as there are fewer names to remember.

There is a strong relationship between Atticus, Jem, Jean and Calpurnia. This is the only family that you are informed about their relationship. They are all very close, except for sometimes Calpurnia and Jean do not get on very well together, ‘it was then that Calpunia requested my presence in the kitchen. She was furious, and when she was furious Calpurnia’s grammar became erratic.’ During the first few chapters, Jean lives up to Jem and thinks a lot of him, Jean always follows him around and likes to do things with him. This changes when Jem gets older as he does not want to play with Jean and during the summer when Dill came he did not want to play with Jean, as she was a girl. Both Jem and Jean love their father Atticus, ‘we ran around the corner to meet Atticus’ this was something the two children would do after school. Calpurnia is like a mother to Jem and Jean as they do not have a mother and Calpurnia does all the house chores for the family and she has become very close to the family and is a part of it.

I chose to explore education and family relationships as I feel that there are a few relationships between them. At school Jean is told by Miss Caroline to stop her father from teaching her, but really it is Calpurnia teaching her to read, as she is literate. Also they are linked together because Jem and Jean go to school together and sometimes do things together in the playground or Jean refers to him at school, ‘released from school thirty minutes earlier before Jem’. The final relationship is that readers learn about lots o the families in Maycomb from school.

Both of my chosen themes play an important part in the story and we do not think about each of the above themes separately and it is then easier to understand the story by looking at each separate theme and linking them together. All the themes in the story play are relevant to the story and help portray what it is like in Maycomb and what is happening in the story.