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.