In today society, more than half of the people live in the world being racist just for different skin color, getting violence for being unlike other, or being bullied as trying to help people. Harper Lee uses “To Kill a Mockingbird” to lead the audience through different emotions and surprises. The book tells child experience in life for the first time without the protection from family, and life is not only pink but fulfills with darkness black and evil things out there. The themes and meaning in the novel are social inequality, maturity, the capacity for empathy.
Writer Harper Lee, the youngest child, was born on April 28, 1926, on Monroeville, Alabama (Biography). In 1944, Harper Lee attended Huntingdon College to study law as her father who is a lawyer Amasa Coleman. In Lee junior year, she got accepted into the University of Alabama, Lee did not enjoy her first year in the program then she left for New York to pursue dream job as a writer. After two years of rewriting, Harper Lee published her first novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” in 1960. The following year, “To Kill a Mockingbird” won the Pulitzer Prize, and the book becomes the bestseller of the twentieth century(Biography). Lee was named to the National Council in 1966 by President Johnson.
In Lee timeline, she also printed three articles including: “Christmas to Me” (1961); “When Children Discover America” (1965); “Love-In Other Words” (1961). In the novel, the novelist tells about Scout, a girl who is ten years old who lived with her father Atticus, brother Jem and a housekeeper Calpurnia in a small-town call Maycomb, Alabama. Throughout the novel, Scout is the narrator who tells the story through her point of view is the first person. As a child, Scout’s view is something that is clear, childish, she will say what she saw, hears, and does what Scout thinks is right. The diction of the novel is the best choice that the poet writes during the story, she would use the simple word, phrases that allow the reader can easily understand the novel.
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At first, the story shows the audience how nice is the town, people help each other like when Miss Maudie house burn to the ground in a snow day. In the end, evil things start to take place in the story that would change the perspective of Scout, Jem and Dill. Scout is the first character who will change in the story by the social inequality in Maycomb town, and represent a better generation in the future. For the trial of Tom Robinson and how people would treat Tom different from white people and the way Scout has a capacity for empathy about Boo Radley who saved her from Bob Ewell’s attack and cover Scout with a blanket in a snow day. In fact, Scout was well-educated by Atticus and being taught how to write by Calpurnia which made her get into trouble with Ms. Caroline on the first day of school.
Atticus taught Scout to become an independent child and need to go through other people skin and mind understanding everybody because everyone has the different point of view in life. Tom Robinson is one of the main characters throughout the play. People would describe Tom is another mockingbird, who tries to help Mayella when nobody did. Instead, receive a thank you from Mayella, he got execution for rapped Mayella. No evidence can prove that Tom got enough strength to force her down because one hand of Tom is shorter than the other. Maycomb people do not care, they just want Tom to get into jail because he is black, and Mayella is white. More about racism in Maycomb community is no matter who is doing wrong, black will be guilty when against white people.
Antagonist character in the play is Bob Ewell who is poor, low educated, abuse’s father, especially hatred of the Finch family when Atticus stands against the crowd and be on Tom Robinson side. More than ever, his hatred for Atticus is raising each scene, when Atticus gets spat in the face and sworn by Ewell; or Bob Ewell attack Scout and Jem led to Jem broke his arm. The opposite word with hatred is tolerance means the ability to forgive something. When thinking about tolerance, the readers will think about Boo Radley and Atticus Finch whose are independent characters and do not change throughout the play. Boo Radley like a Mockingbird, who is innocent from the begin to the end of the story.
The difference with an imaginary of Jem, Boo is a kind and sweet person, fill the tree hole with the amazing gifts and help children out. The only time he comes outside of the house is when to put a blanket on Scout’s shoulder and to keep her warm from the winter. Thus, Boo helps Jem to stitch his pant and put nicely on the fence. Atticus is moral and the great father in the novel. He raised two kid by himself, taught them how to read before school started. Atticus taught his children to think independently, explained what right or wrong to the children when they misunderstood the world outside, and he also taught them to treat people equality.
Atticus stress with education and he tells Scout to forgive and go back to school after Scout had not had a good day from school. In other scenes, Atticus was a lawyer for Tom Robinson against Ewell’s, people call Scout’s father a nigger lover behind his back, but he did not take that seriously and not give too much attention. Throughout the novel, the audience can easily find ten literary elements that make the play more interesting. First is personification “The fire was well into the second floor and had eaten its way to the roof: window frames were black against a vivid orange center (Lee 79).
Irony happened when Ms. Caroline told Scout to stop reading at home, and tell Atticus to stop teaching Scout because that her job, not his. And when the reader, Scout, Jem, Atticus know that Tom is innocent but later he is found guilty. The metaphor that Lee used is the discrimination of black people from the white people, an innocent people like Tom Robinson is being convicted for no good reason. Jem uses his imagination to describe how Boo Radley was about six and a half feet tall, there was a long, jagged scar that ran across his face; Jem describes Boo from child’s view and also created a mystery, dangerous characters about Boo to the reader. Jem broke his arm when he was nearly thirteen foreshadow that Ewell will attack and broke his arm later on (Lee 3).
Next is hyperbole, Ms. Blount told Ms. Caroline class to be quiet before she burns up everybody in it (Lee 24). The scene is funny for Ms. Blount cannot burn anything, but her word use to scare people like she will do it if anyone did not be silent. Atticus says: “Come on round here, son, I got something that settle your stomach (Lee 227).” Is an alliteration because the sentence repeats the “s” over again. Following that Atticus juxtaposed to society as Atticus stands out the people from Maycomb town to defending the black man. Additionally, in chapter two, Lee used malapropism when Jem call the new teaching way of Scout’s teacher as “Dewey Decimal System”.
The last thing is a euphemism, which allows everybody says like buys cotton is a nice way to say somebody is unemployed. Some people think the book message of standing up for what is right even though it will lead to high cost later. Social inequality and racism still happened in our daily life, it might become a nightmare to somebody and nobody have enough brave to stand up for those people as Atticus stand up for Tom. Nobody deserves to be a victim of racist and was being treated without respect because they are human. Everybody should take the racism, social unfairness into consideration what happened in life because everybody’s life is impacted as well.
