Transcript To Kill A Mockingbird - Chandler Unified School District

To Kill A Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
Small town racism; social inequality exist
The South

Divide between blacks and whites

Avoiding interracial marriages—
especially black men and white women

Still angry about losing the war (which
one?)

Don’t trust anyone from the North

Genteel society
Jim Crow Laws

Many of the discriminatory Jim
Crow laws were enacted to
support racial segregation in
everyday life. They required black
and white people to use separate
water fountains, public schools,
public restrooms, restaurants,
public libraries, buses and rail cars
Who was Jim Crow?

“Jump Jim Crow”, a song-and-dance caricature
of blacks performed by the white actor Thomas D.
Rice in blackface, first surfaced in 1832 to satirize
Andrew Jackson’s populist policies.

As a result of Rice’s fame, “Jim Crow” had
become an expression synonymous with “Negro”
by 1838

When the southern legislatures passed laws of
racial segregation—directed against blacks—they
became known as Jim Crow Laws
What happens if you
break a Jim Crow law?

The Jim Crow Laws justified and
perpetuated the use of lynching
against African Americans,
particularly by groups such as the
Klu Klux Klan (KKK).
Ku Klux Klan

KuKlux- means ‘circle’ in Greek

Klan- group or club
Founded by former Confederate soldiers after the Civil
War (1865), the Ku Klux Klan used violence and
intimidation to prevent blacks from voting, holding
political office, and attending school.
The Great Depression

1929, “Black Tuesday”, the stock market crashed,
meaning the value of money had lost its worth

Businesses could no longer afford to pay their
workers and began laying off hundreds of
thousands of people

Because people had no money, harvesting and
manufacture of new crops and products slowed
drastically

Rural, southern towns were hit hard because they
were largely reliant on agriculture
The Great Depression

In towns like Maycomb, communication with
outlying houses depend on dirt roads, and all
country inhabitants (whether professional or
farmers) are poor

The Cunningham family in TKAM pays Atticus for
legal work in crop or other goods instead of
money
Harper Lee
L. BRAVO BUCHANAN
SPRING 2015
Early Life

Born in April of 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama

Youngest of 4 children, Lee was a self-confessed
tomboy who enjoyed reading and writing from a
young age

She grew up with author Truman Capote, upon
whom the character Dill is said to be based
Monroeville, Alabama
Story takes place in Maycomb
County…said to be Harper Lee’s
Childhood home
On the set
Scout- Mary Badham- actress that
portrayed (somewhat) Harper Lee in
the story To Kill a Mockingbird
(shown here with Harper Lee)
To Kill a Mockingbird

Published in 1960

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1961

Deals with many issues, including racism, that
Lee observed in her hometown as a child

Often criticized for its constant use of the
‘n’word throughout the novel
Presidential Medal of
Freedom

November 5, 2007, President
George W. Bush presented
Lee with the Presidential
Medal of Freedom

It is the highest civilian
award in the United States
and recognizes individuals
who have made “an
especially meritorious
contribution to the security
or national interests of the
United States, world peace,
cultural or other significant
public or private
endeavours”

Overview

An historic literary event: the
publication of a newly discovered
novel, the earliest known work from
Harper Lee, the beloved, bestselling
author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning
classic, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Originally written in the mid-1950s, Go
Set a Watchman was the novel
Harper Lee first submitted to her
publishers before To Kill a
Mockingbird. Assumed to have been
lost, the manuscript was discovered
in late 2014.
THE COEXISTENCE OF GOOD AND EVIL
THE QUESTION OF WHETHER PEOPLE ARE GOOD OR BAD. THE LOSS
OF THE CHILDREN’S INNOCENCE WHEN AS THEY REALIZE THAT SOME
PEOPLE ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM TO BE.
APPEARANCE VS. REALITY- PEOPLE AND THINGS ARE NOT
ALWAYS WHAT THEY SEEM.
THE IMPORTANCE OF MORAL EDUCATION
HOW THEY ARE TAUGHT TO MOVE FROM INNOCENCE
TO ADULTHOOD. EDUCATION IS MORE THAN JUST
BOOK LEARNING.
THE EXISTENCE OF SOCIAL INEQUALITY
DIFFERENCES IN SOCIAL STATUS ARE EXPLORED LARGELY THROUGH
THE OVERCOMPLICATED SOCIAL HIERARCHY OF MAYCOMB, THE
INS AND OUTS OF WHICH CONSTANTLY BAFFLE THE CHILDREN.
Motifs
Motif is recurring structures, contrasts, and
literary devices that can help to develop and
inform the text’s major themes.

Gothic Details- forces of good and evil in
To Kill a Mockingbird seem larger than the
small Southern town in which the story
takes place

Small-Town Life- Counterbalancing the
Gothic motif of the story is the motif of
old-fashioned, small-town values, which
manifest themselves throughout the novel
Symbols
objects, characters, figures, and colors used to
.
represent abstract ideas or concepts

Mockingbirds- innocents destroyed by
evil, the “mockingbird” comes to
represent the idea of innocence. Thus, to
kill a mockingbird is to destroy innocence.

Boo Radley- the children’s changing
attitude toward Boo Radley is an
important measurement of their
development from innocence toward a
grown-up moral perspective