To Kill a Mockingbird

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To Kill a Mockingbird

• By Harper Lee

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Harper Lee
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• Wrote To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960
• Based the story on her life growing up in
  Monroeville, Alabama
• TKAM was the only novel she ever wrote

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SETTING OF THE NOVEL

• Southern United States
• Maycomb, Alabama (fictional name)
• 1930s
• Great Depression
• Dust bowl
• Prejudice and legal segregation
• Ignorance

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Major Historical Happenings...

• Recovering from the Great Depression
• Poor South
• Jim Crow Laws
• Racial Injustice
• Scottsboro Trials

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1930s - Great Depression began when the stock
market crashed in October, 1929

• Businesses failed, factories closed
• People were out of work
• Even people with money suffered because nothing
  was being produced for sale.
• Poor people lost their homes, were forced to
  live off the land.

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1929-1939

• Farmers were already feeling the effects
• Prices of crops went down
• Many farms foreclosed
• People could not afford luxuries
• Factories shut down
• Businesses went out
• Banks could not pay out money
• People could not pay their taxes
• Schools shut down due to lack of funds
• Many families became homeless and had to live in
  shanties

Many found being broke humiliating.
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White trash

• Poor, uneducated white people who lived on
  relief
• lowest social class, even below the poor blacks
• prejudiced against black people
• felt the need to put down blacks in order to
  elevate themselves

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Out of the Dust
The South and the Dust Bowl
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A drought in the South lead to dust storms that
destroyed crops.
The Dust Bowl
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The South Was Buried

• Crops turned to dustNo food to be sent out
• Homes buried
• Fields blown away
• South in state of emergency
• Dust Bowl the 1 weather crisis of the 20th
  century

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Racial prejudice was alive well. Although
slavery had ended in 1864, old ideas were
slow to change.
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Jim Crow Laws

• After the American Civil War most states in the
  South passed anti-African American legislation.
  These became known as Jim Crow laws.
• These laws included segregation in
• Schools -- Hospitals
• Theaters -- Water fountains
• Restaurants
• Hotels
• Public transportation
• Some states forbid inter-racial marriages

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• These laws were instituted in 1896 and were not
  abolished till the late 1950s (even then still
  not completely).

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Racial separation (segregation)
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Scottsboro Boys Trial

• 9 young African-American men (13-20) accused of
  raping 2 white girls in 1931
• Immediately sentenced to death
• Trials went on for nearly 15 years before all the
  men were dismissed

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• Started on a train bound for Memphis
• Several white men boarded and picked a fight with
  the black men
• Whites were forced off train by the 12 black men.
  The white men reported the the black men had
  raped two white girls on the train to authorities
• They were immediately arrested and tried in front
  of an all-white jury.

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The trials caused a huge uproar amongst the black
community.
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Reading the Novel

• Setting is all important be aware of the
• where and when as you begin
• Point of View the novel is shaped by the voice
  of a young girl, Scout, who sees the story from a
  position of naïve acceptance
• Goodness vs. Evil (Ignorance) is an important
  theme

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Point of View

• First Person Narrator
• Story is told by Scout
• Told as a woman looking back to when she was
  young school girl.
• Scout represents the author, Harper Lee, as a
  little girl. However, the story is not strictly
  autobiographical.

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Characters

• Scout young girl age 6 10 through the novel.
  Tomboy, little sister, innocent, naive
• Jem 10 - 14 year olf boy, Scouts older
  brother, respectful, protective, leader
• Dill neighbor boy, curious, 7 11 years old

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• The character of Dill, Scout and Jems playmate
  in the novel was based upon Lees actual
  neighbor, Truman Capote
• Capote is famous for amongst other things, In
  Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffanys.

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Characters

• Atticus Finch - an attorney whose wife has
  died, leaving him to raise their two children.
  He is fair and just and does not subscribe to the
  ways of the old South.
• Tom Robinson a black man accused of raping
  white girl he is defended at trial by Atticus

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Prejudice in the novel

• Race
• Gender
• Social Status
• Age
• Religion

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Gender Bias (Prejudice)

• Women were considered weak
• Women were generally not educated for
  occupations outside the home
• In wealthy families, women were expected to
  oversee the servants and entertain guests
• Men not considered capable of nurturing children

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Legal Issues of the 1930s which impact the story

• Women given the vote in 1920
• Juries were MALE and WHITE
• Fair trial did not include acceptance of a
  black mans word against a white mans