TKAM ESSAY PRACTICE
Does To Kill a Mockingbird deserve its title as a classic of American Literature? Refer to the novel’s narrative elements in your response.
Harper Lee is an American author of the novel called ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ set in the quite town of 1930s Maycomb and published in 1960. To Kill a Mockingbird deserves its tittle as an American classic novel. This will be proven through an exploration of the novel’s themes: loss of innocent, prejudice, moral education and courage. The Pulitzer prize- winning novel deserves its title as a classic of American literature. This essay will reinforce the novel’s narrative elements through character, plot, setting, and style.
At first, Lee uses the character such as Jem, Scout and Atticus Finch to help convey these notions and concerns. Jem and Scout take the readers through their journey of loss of innocence. While then we learn about Atticus’s morals and ethics. In the novel ‘To Kill a mockingbird Harper Lee uses the character scout and Jem to depict the issue of loss of innocence. Throughout To Kill a Mockingbird Jem and Scout change tremendously. As the novel goes on, the reader can see that Jem and Scout mature even when the rest of the town does not, “Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time. "The Author uses the character Jem to show the readers maturation of his beliefs .Jem is growing up and realizes that the myths about Boo are unlikely to be true. These clarifications give the readers a perfect understanding of loss of innocence in To Kill a Mockingbird and how it deserve its title as a classic of American literature.
"There's something in our world that makes men lose their heads - they couldn't be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it's a white man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins. They're ugly, but those are the fact of life. “This was quote said by Atticus Finch. One of the novel’s vital plots involves the father of the story’s narrator, Scout, a lawyer representing a black man accused of raping and beating a white girl despite paucity evidence pointing to the black man’s guilt. The novelist uses the trial of Tom Robinson as the main plot in the novel to explore idea of prejudice in the town of Maycomb during the 30’s. A black man, Tom Robison is accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a white woman. In this plot , the racially prejudice nature of Maycomb is clearly portrayed though such instances as the fact that Atticus is accused by the town of being a “nigger lover” for defending Tom’s case and also through the lynch mob scene outside the jail. It is in the Tom Robinson trial that the greatest example of injustice because of prejudice is seen. Although Atticus actually manages to prove the innocence of Tom, the white jury still refuses to declare the innocence of a black man over a white woman. Through its decision the town essentially kills a mockingbird .Tom was a man who did no harm others but instead actually helped others out of kindness-a mockingbird who becomes victim to a racist society.
The setting of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is appropriate and is one of the key aspects of the novel used to enforce the themes of novel. It is effective because it takes place in the South America where racism is prevalent. Harper Lee’s novel raises key themes of morality in the eyes of a six- years old Scout to instill into the reader many ethics to combat these racist attitudes and inculcate other moral values. To kill a Mockingbird is set in place and time during which moral education and education in general was not of much importance. This lack of moral education leads to many instances during the novel in which narrow- minded people’s views conflict with people that have some morals such as Atticus and his daughter Scout. Atticus being the good father he tries to instill some these morals into his children by
