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To Kill A Mockingbird: SYMBOLISM / SYMBOLS / CONTRASTS IN MAYCOMB SOCIETY by Harper Lee
Free Study Guide: To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee - Free BookNotes Previous Page | Table of Contents | Next Page Downloadable / Printable Version SYMBOLISM / SYMBOLS in To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee has used symbolism rather extensively throughout the novel and a great deal of it refers to the problems of racism in the South during the early twentieth century. Symbolism can be traced in almost every important episode or event which formulates the story line. Right from the beginning Scout’s character and her outlook towards the behavior of the people in Maycomb county symbolizes a child’s innate curiosity towards life. Scout’s understanding of Walter Cunningham’s poverty and his self-pride is a prime example of this. Miss Maudie is a classic example of the enlightened woman living in an age of suppressed womanhood. Mrs. Finally, the deepest symbolism conveyed is through the use of the concept of the mockingbird. The white community is divided into two sections.
To Kill a Mockingbird: Plot Overview
Scout Finch lives with her brother, Jem, and their widowed father, Atticus, in the sleepy Alabama town of Maycomb. Maycomb is suffering through the Great Depression, but Atticus is a prominent lawyer and the Finch family is reasonably well off in comparison to the rest of society. One summer, Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill, who has come to live in their neighborhood for the summer, and the trio acts out stories together. Eventually, Dill becomes fascinated with the spooky house on their street called the Radley Place. The house is owned by Mr. Nathan Radley, whose brother, Arthur (nicknamed Boo), has lived there for years without venturing outside. Scout goes to school for the first time that fall and detests it. To the consternation of Maycomb’s racist white community, Atticus agrees to defend a black man named Tom Robinson, who has been accused of raping a white woman. Atticus’s sister, Alexandra, comes to live with the Finches the next summer.
To Kill A Mockingbird: DETAILED CHARACTER ANALYSIS by Harper Lee
Free Study Guide: To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee - Free BookNotes Previous Page | Table of Contents | Next Page Downloadable / Printable Version Aunt Alexandra Aunt Alexandra is Atticus’ sister, who used to stay at the ancestral Finch landing before she arrives at Atticus’ house to stay. Aunt Alexandra, initially comes across as a cold, unfeeling and an unloving person. But even Aunt Alexandra comes down from her presumptuous pedestal by the end of the novel. Boo Radley Arthur Radley, called Boo by the children, is an enigma in himself. Though having gained the reputation of a lunatic, Boo is basically a harmless, well-meaning person; childlike in behavior sometimes, and as Jem and Scout realize, hankering for some love and affection. When Boo emerges from the house to rescue Jem and Scout, and is finally introduced to the children, it can be seen that due to his long confinement, his health has weakened and he is unable to even stand the harsh living room lights. Bob Ewell
To Kill a Mockingbird Quotes for Exam Revision GCSE English Literature
One page of key quotes to learn for the English Literature exam on To Kill a Mockingbird, for AQA or the WJEC GCSE. Simple! Finches: ‘stripped of everything but their land’ ‘related by blood or marriage’ a ‘tired old town’ Atticus ‘read to us, played with us’ and treated us with ‘courteous detachment’. Boo is an ‘unknown entity’. Little Chuck poor but a ‘born gentleman’. Miss Maudie ‘benign’, ‘reign over the street in magisterial beauty’, mimosa ‘like angels’ breath’. Atticus to Uncle Jack: children ‘can spot an evasion faster than adults’ Scout: “I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year When she sees snow thinks: “the world’s endin’” Atticus ‘seems that only children weep.’ Calpurnia to Scout: ’it’s not ladylike’ Calpurnia ‘They’d think I was puttin’ on airs to beat Moses’ Scout but ‘you know better’ Calpurnia ‘it’s not necessary to tell all you know’ ‘made me think there was some skill involved in being a girl’ hand was ‘as wide as a bed slat and twice as hard’
BBC Bitesize - GCSE English Literature - Sample exam question (Wales) - Revis...
To Kill a Mockingbird: Important Quotations Explained
Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop . . . [s]omehow it was hotter then . . . bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum. . . . This quotation, from Chapter 1, is Scout’s introductory description of Maycomb. “We have nothing to fear but fear itself” is the most famous line from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first inaugural speech, made after the 1932 presidential election. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. “Remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” A boy trudged down the sidewalk dragging a fishing pole behind him.
About the Great Depression
About the Great Depression The Great Depression was an economic slump in North America, Europe, and other industrialized areas of the world that began in 1929 and lasted until about 1939. It was the longest and most severe depression ever experienced by the industrialized Western world. Though the U.S. economy had gone into depression six months earlier, the Great Depression may be said to have begun with a catastrophic collapse of stock-market prices on the New York Stock Exchange in October 1929. During the next three years stock prices in the United States continued to fall, until by late 1932 they had dropped to only about 20 percent of their value in 1929. The Great Depression began in the United States but quickly turned into a worldwide economic slump owing to the special and intimate relationships that had been forged between the United States and European economies after World War I. The Great Depression had important consequences in the political sphere. Source
