1. To Kill a Mockingbird
By Harper Lee

2. Why Do We Read To Kill A Mockingbird?
We can all agree on a few things…..racism exists….we hate it, but it does.
Racism is not just about color. It is about gender, age, economic status….etc.
The great Abraham Heschel once said, “Racism is man’s gravest threat for a minimum of reason.”
The truth is that people hate. There is never a good reason, time, or place, but hatred rules this world. Even though hating someone takes more energy, people, sadly, prefer to hate rather than love.

3. Why Do We Read To Kill A Mockingbird?
During the 1960’s, when Harper Lee wrote To Kill A Mockingbird, she wasn’t just talking about racism. She wanted to open the nation’s eyes to the fact that hatred existed in every corner of the most secret and exposed portions of our lives.
Harper Lee wanted to make the world take a hard look, not at just racism, but hate. Why we hate and how we can change the world if we take off our blinders and love the way we were intended to love….without noticing color, gender, age, or economic status.
So, to answer the question, why do we read To Kill A Mockingbird? The simple truth is that we still believe in the world that Harper Lee believed could exist. A world that looked past all the hatred and where for once love triumphed over hatred.

4. A Few More Truths…
Harper Lee never wrote another book…To Kill A Mockingbird was her one and only, her biggest message to the world.
It has never been out of print. The only book to ever outsell To Kill A Mockingbird is the Bible.
There are words in this novel, just like any novel, that are not appropriate and will be offensive. We understand that Harper Lee is making a point, but I won’t say them and you won’t say them….PERIOD.
This book has stood the test of time…there is a reason for that….figure it out.

5. Background….Where did Harper Lee get her ideas?

6. SETTING OF THE NOVEL Maycomb, Alabama 1930’s Great Depression
Prejudice and legal segregation
Ignorance

7. 1930’s – The Great Depression began when the stock market crashed in October, 1929
Businesses failed, factories closed
People were out of work
Even people with money suffered because nothing was being produced for sale.
Poor people lost their homes, were forced to “live off the land.”

8. Racial prejudice was alive & well
Racial prejudice was alive & well. Although slavery had ended in 1864, old ideas were slow to change.

9. Racial separation: Segregation

10. Gender Bias or 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 were not considered capable of nurturing children
Women were “encouraged” not to take work away from men. Some states passed laws against women working.

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

12. Legal issues of the 1930’s which impact the story
Women given the right to vote in 1920
Juries were MALE and WHITE
“Fair trial” did not include acceptance of a black man’s word against a white man’s

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

14. Scottsboro Trial
1931—9 black males ages 13 to 21 were arrested while “riding the rails” for raping two women.
After a quick trial (two weeks after their arrest) all were found guilty and 8 sentenced to be executed with the youngest sentenced to life imprisonment—these verdicts were overturned by a higher court
One of the two women recanted her “story” and testified at a second trial that neither she nor the other woman had been raped
In 1936, 4 of the men were acquitted (found innocent). Four more were released in the 1940s and the ninth man was released from prison in 1950.
In 1976, the men were officially pardoned by the state of Alabama. Only one still survived.

15. Characters
Atticus Finch - an attorney whose wife has died, leaving him to raise their two children:
Jem – 10-year-old boy
Scout – (Jean Louise), 6-year-old girl
Tom Robinson – a black man accused of raping a white girl; he is defended at trial by Atticus

16. Point of View First person
Story is told by Scout, a 6-year-old girl at the beginning of the novel
Harper Lee is a woman; Scout represents the author as a little girl, although the story is not strictly autobiographical

17. Reading the Novel
Setting is all important –be aware of the “where” and “when” as you begin
Point of View – the novel is shaped by the voice of a young girl who sees the story from a position of naive acceptance
“Goodness vs. Ignorance or Evil” is an important theme