1. To Kill a Mockingbird
By Harper Lee

2. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy
"Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

3. What was life like back in the 1930s?

4. Where do you think they are?

5. Any new ideas on their whereabouts?

7. THE TRUE CASE: The Scottsboro Boys
1931 – fight on a train while “riding the rails”
Two girls allege rape (one a known prostitute) after being jailed for vagrancy
Nine black boys jailed in Scottsboro
All nine boys are sentenced to death, except youngest (even after one girl confesses she was never raped)
All are eventually paroled, freed, or pardoned (except for one – sentenced to death four times, but he escapes to Detroit) (Linder)

8. THE QUOTATIONS: Scottsboro
“The courtroom was one big smiling white face.” - Haywood Patterson
“I was scared before, but it wasn’t nothing to how I felt now. I knew if a white woman accused a black man of rape, he was as good as dead.” - Clarence Norris
“If you ever saw those creatures, those bigots whose mouths are slits in their faces, whose eyes popped out at you like frogs, whose chins dripped tobacco juice, bewhiskered and filthy, you would not ask how they could do it.” Defense Attorney Samuel Liebowitz commenting on the jury verdict in Alabama v Patterson
(Linder)

9. “There shouldn’t be any trial for them damn niggers--thirty cents worth of rope would do the work and it wouldn’t cost the county much.” - Decatur lunchroom proprietor. (Linder)

10. SETTING OF THE NOVEL Southern United States 1930s Great Depression
Prejudice and legal segregation
Ignorance

11. Life in the 1930’s Money was scarce
Drought across Plains states (Dust Bowl)
Average salary: $1,368
Unemployment rises to 25%
Most people struggled just to feed their families

12. Dick and Jane—school book used in 1930s

13. Why does Scout hate school?

14. 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

15. “White trash” Poor, uneducated white people who lived on “relief “
lowest social class
prejudiced against black people
felt the need to “put down” blacks in order to elevate themselves

16. Social Class in the Novel
This is probably similar to how class structure existed during the 1930s in the South. The wealthy, although fewest in number, were most powerful. The blacks, although great in number, were lowest on the class ladder, and thus, had the least privileges.
Examples of each social class:
Wealthy - Finches
Country Folk - Cunninghams
“White Trash” – Ewells
Black Community – Tom Robinson

17. Race Gender Handicaps Rich/Poor Age Religion
Prejudice in the novel
Race
Gender
Handicaps
Rich/Poor
Age
Religion

18. Point of View First person Story is told by Scout, a 5-year-old girl
The story spans from the time Scout is 5 to the time she is 8
the novel is shaped by how Scout sees the world—innocently
and lacking in full understanding

19. Characters
Atticus Finch - an attorney whose wife has died, leaving him to raise their two children:
-Jem – 9-year-old boy
-Scout – (Jean Louise), 5-year-old girl
Tom Robinson – a black man accused of raping white girl; he is defended at trial by Atticus

20. Reading the Novel Setting is all important –be aware of the
“where” and “when” as you begin
Look for the following themes:
Courage
Isolation
Prejudice
Justice
Appearance vs. reality
Loss of innocence
Multiple perspectives (different ways of viewing the world/ events/ people)