von Saucken 1

Victoria von Saucken

Ms. Beach

Honors English 10

1 June 2010

To Kill a Mockingbird

Speaker

  • First person
  • Harper Lee’s personality is mirrored in the protagonist Scout.
  • Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, the youngest of four, in Monroeville, Alabama.
  • Her parents gave her the first name of her maternal grandmother, Ellen Finch, spelled backward.
  • Lee later changed her name to Harper Lee on her novel To Kill A Mockingbird because she did not want “Yankees” to call her Nellie instead of Nelle Lee.
  • Lee has remained an inhabitant of Monroeville her whole live, which this small town has a population of 6,372.
  • After graduating high school in 1944 with an interest in English literature, she went to an all-female school, Huntingdon College in Montgomery.
  • Transferring to the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, Lee was known for being a loner and an individualist.
  • Lee contributed to the school’s newspaper and humor magazine, the Rammer Jammer, and she eventually became the editor of the Rammer Jammer.
  • After her first semester in senior year, Lee dropped out of school and went to New York City to follow her dream of becoming a writer.
  • In 1949, a 23 year-old Harper Lee struggled at making ends meet and did many odd jobs, such as working as a ticket agent for Eastern Airlines and for the British Overseas Air Corp (BOAC).
  • Lee befriended Truman Capote again (their relationship will be explained in occasion) and the Broadway composer Michael Martin Brown and his wife Joy.
  • In 1956, the Browns gave Lee an impressive Christmas gift- to support her for a year so that she could write full time.
  • The Browns also helped her find an agent, Maurice Crain.
  • Mr. Crain was able to publish her first novel, which was first titled Go Set A Watchman, then Atticus, and later To Kill A Mockingbird.
  • To Kill A Mockingbirdwas published in 1960 and translated into more than 40 languages.
  • Also, over 30 million copies have been sold of the novel, which its popularity stems from junior highs and high schools across the nation.
  • Her novel won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961, increasing its popularity in the world.
  • Harper Lee later told the Birmingham Post-Herald in 1962, “My book had a universal theme. It’s not a ‘racial’ novel. It portrays an aspect of civilization, not necessarily Southern civilization.”
  • In an era when authors become instant celebrities, appearing on countless talk shows and at book readings and signings, she is an enigma.
  • In 2007, Lee went to the White House to accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor, from President George W. Bush.

Larger Occasion

  • Between 1877 and the mid-1960s, Jim Crow laws were enforced, which was a racial caste system that operated in Southern and Border States.
  • Jim Crow represented the legitimization of anti-Black racism and was a way of life, which resulted in African Americans migrating from rural southern state homes to urban centers such as New York City.
  • During the roaring 1920s, bootleggers and flappers were popular as well as the Klu Klux Klan (KKK) in the South.
  • From the late 1920s to 1930s, the Great Depression occurred which traumatized everyone financially.
  • In 1931, nine Negroes were arrested for attacking two white girls, which was later referred to as the Scottsboro trial.
  • Despite the famous defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, called by the NAACP to defend them, eight Negroes died in the electric chair for attacks on two white girls of Huntsville, Alabama.
  • Many critics speculated that the Tom Robinson case was based on the Scottsboro trial; however, Harper Lee said the case in her novel “was a composite of all the trials in the world.”
  • In 1932, FDR becomes president, and in the first 100 days of his presidency, Roosevelt launches the New Deal including dozens of federal programs to help agriculture.
  • The Works Progress Administration (WPA) is specifically mentioned in the novel, which was started in 1935 during FDR’s Second New Deal.
  • The WPA created jobs in construction for people hit by the Great Depression.
  • Also, the Federal Food Stamp Program is started to help low-income families buy food, which many proud and independent families feel humiliated to have to stand in line and “accept relief.”
  • In 1933, Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany and marches into Austria in 1938, which causes Germany to leave the League of Nations.
  • Germany invades Poland in 1939, which starts WWII.
  • Due to the Neutrality Acts, the US government publicly opposes Hitler's aggression in Europe but refuses to get involved. President Roosevelt says he will not send troops into any foreign wars, which further promotes U.S.’s isolationistic attitude.
  • The U.S. later enters the war in 1941 alongside Great Britain.
  • With Adolf Hitler’s suicide, WWII ends in 1945, and the Cold War begins between Russia and the U.S. that produces fear of communism.
  • In 1948, President Truman abolishes racial segregation in the U.S. armed forces.
  • North Korea invades South Korea in 1950, and General MacArthur enters the U.S. in the Korean conflict.
  • In 1954, The Brown v. Board of Education decision is handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court saying that "separate but equal" school systems are unconstitutional. An era of desegregation of schools is instituted.
  • The Civil Rights Act of 1957 established a permanent Civil Rights Commission and a Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department which was empowered to prevent interference with the right to vote.
  • The Civil Rights Act of 1960 gave the federal courts power to register African American voters.
  • Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech and sit-ins begin including the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1963.
  • In 1965, 7,600 Civil Rights marchers travel from Selma to Montgomery who is attacked by state and local police for their demonstrations.
  • In the late 60s and 70s, the Red Scare only continues in Europe, Asia, and Africa as well as Cuba with Fidel Castro.

Immediate Occasion

  • Harper Lee’s mother, Frances Cunningham Lee, twice tried to drown Nelle in the bathtub when she was two years old during one of her emotional fits.
  • Her mother was said to be bipolar and was never mentally stable; since Nelle never had a close relationship with her mother that is the reason why Scout lacks a mother in her novel.
  • Through Aunt Alexandra, there holds the view Nelle saw her mother, as a lady that lacked any morals and was an incurable gossip.
  • Lee possessed a black housekeeper, Hattie Clausell, growing up in Monroeville, who cleaned, cooked, and looked after the children.
  • Harper Lee must of thought of Hattie when she created the character Calpurnia since Hattie was the mother figure in Lee’s life.
  • As for her father, Amasa Coleman Lee or A.C. Lee, worked as a civic leader in Monroeville and an Alabama state legislator (He became a lawyer in 1915).
  • A.C. Lee was appointed in 1919 to defend two blacks accused of murdering a white man. He lost and they were both hanged. A.C.’s determination to defend African Americans shows connections between his case and Atticus’s Tom Robinson case.
  • Lee was very close to her father and would read the newspaper on his lap, and the character Atticus Finch, is also a lawyer and loves his daughter Scout dearly.
  • While Lee was growing up, she made friends with Truman Capote, who was different from the other boys and was not as strong as Nelle.
  • Nelle embodies many of the same personality qualities as Scout: tom-boy, independent, curious, and loving.
  • She even called her father by his first name, A.C. and absolutely adored him.
  • Her eldest sister, Alice later admitted that her youngest sister“isn’t much of a conformist.”
  • Lee based her fun, loving character Dill on Truman, which like Scout and Dill, Truman and Nelle had plenty of adventures.
  • Also, Truman was openly abandoned by his parents and like Dill, would spend his summers with his aunt.
  • “Finch’s Landing” Lee based on her mother’s family’s plantation, which according to the novel, “produced everything required to sustain life except ice, wheat, flour, and articles of clothing, supplied by river-boats from Mobile.”
  • Maycomb mirrors Monroeville in the following similarities: isolation from the world, prejudice towards Negroes, and the focus of the courthouse in everyday life.
  • In addition, the family names Cunningham and Finch come from Nelle’s family tree.

Audience

  • Harper Lee writes to small town inhabitants.

Harper Lee writes to adults experiencing the joys of parenthood.

  • Harper Lee writes to misunderstood individuals discriminated by society.

Harper Lee writes to those people that express courage through the fight called life.

  • Harper Lee writes to individuals who possess childhood innocence.

Purpose

Harper Lee writes to adults experiencing the joys of parenthood in order to show the role children have on the world around them and their possession of a different perspective.

Harper Lee writes to adults experiencing the joys of parenthood because she shows that there are many ways to express love towards one’s children.

  • Harper Lee writes to misunderstood individuals discriminated by society through her concept of “coming out” and how the transformation of people to silence is caused by gossip and rumors.
  • Harper Lee writes to misunderstood individuals discriminated by society because Lee expresses the effect a person’s passion can have on society for freedom and justice.
  • Harper Lee writes to misunderstood individuals discriminated by society to show how prejudice clouds society’s reason, which allows society to be wrong occasionally.
  • Harper Lee writes to small town inhabitants because of her focus on the value of money, which leads to the development of a caste system.
  • Harper Lee writes to small town inhabitants when she discusses prejudice an individual can possess because of isolation in a small town away from the real world.

Harper Lee writes to those people that express courage through the fight called life when she exercises the lesson of needs versus wants and choosing which is right.

Harper Lee writes to those people that express courage through the fight called life in order to show a character overcoming an addiction despite the negative thoughts of others.

Harper Lee writes to those people that express courage through the fight called life when Lee defines courage to be the following: when an individual knows they are going to lose to society but tries to win anyways.

  • Harper Lee writes to individuals who possess childhood innocence when Lee displays situations where her innocent characters deal with racism and sexism.
  • Harper Lee writes to individuals who possess childhood innocence when Lee proves that even people who become adults still show childhood innocence through their actions.

Subject

  • “coming out” (3)
  • “criminal law” (5)
  • “routine contentment” (9)
  • “Maycomb’s ways” (11)
  • “Maycomb County” (24)
  • “entailment” (27)
  • “common folk” (40)
  • “exclusive society” (41)
  • “compromise” (41)
  • “nigger-talk” (49)
  • “summertime ritual” (51)
  • “friendship” (57)
  • “knot hole” (81)
  • “frozen charred azaleas” (97)
  • “to be a lady” (105)
  • “Finch’s Landing” (106)
  • “nigger-lover” (110)
  • “pride” (116)
  • “Negro” (117)
  • “to kill a mockingbird” (119)
  • “mad dog” (124)
  • “Ol’ One-Shot” (129)
  • “essence of man’s conscience” (139)
  • “majority rule” (140)
  • “alarm clock” (144)
  • “addict” (147)
  • “courage” (149)
  • “alien set of values” (153)
  • “rape” (165)
  • “double life” (167)
  • “heredity” (173)
  • “caste system” (175)
  • “morphodite” (184)
  • “code of our childhood” (188)
  • “southern womanhood” (196)
  • “mixed children” (215)
  • “respectable Negro” (257)
  • “code of our society” (272)
  • “evil assumption” (273)
  • “court” (274)
  • “shadow of a doubt” (294)
  • “kinds of folks” (302)
  • “town children” (327)
  • “democracy” (328)
  • “prejudice” (329)
  • “Hot Steams” (341)
  • “sin” (370)
  • “summertime,”“fall,”“winter” (374)

Tone

  • Placid
  • “There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County” ( 6).
  • “In a pig’s ear you did, Dill. Hush. What’ll we play today?” (48).
  • Awe
  • “There he would stand, his arm around the fat pole, staring and wondering” (10).
  • “’d you see him, Scout? ‘d you see him just standin’ there?... ‘n’ all of a sudden he just relaxed all over…” (129).
  • “Their attention amounted to fascination. Atticus’s mouth, even, was half-open, an attitude he had once described as uncouth. Our eyes met and he shut it” (205).
  • Detached
  • “…when Jem would question him Atticus’s only answer was for him to mind his own business and let the Radleys mind theirs…” (13).
  • “I ran to Atticus for comfort, but he said I had it coming and it was high time we went home” (112).
  • “Jem’s chin would come up, and he would gaze at Mrs. Dubose with a face devoid of resentment” (146).
  • Anticipate
  • “…as we stared down the street we thought we saw an inside shutter move. Flick. A tiny, almost invisible movement, and the house was still” (19).
  • “But I still looked for him each time I went by. Maybe someday we would see him” (325).
  • Apprehension
  • “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to even touch the trees over there? You’ll get killed if you do!” (45).
  • “I raised my head and stared at the Radley Place steps in front of me. I froze” (50).
  • “Jem leaped off the porch and galloped toward us. He flung open the gate, danced Dill and me through, and shooed us between two rows of swishing collards” (71).
  • Remorse
  • “Every night-sound I heard from my cot on the back porch was magnified three fold; every scratch of feet on gravel was Boo Radley seeking revenge…” (74).
  • “I don’t get it, I just don’t get it—I don’t know why, Scout… I’ve gotta good mind to tell Atticus--- no, I reckon not” (82).
  • Outrage
  • “This yard’s as much mine as it is yours, Jem Finch” (61).
  • “I’ll never speak to you again as long as I live! I hate you and despise you an’ hope you die tomorrow!” (112).
  • “He is not! I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, but you better cut it out this red hot minute” (110).

Literary Devices

1)Metaphor

“He liked Maycomb, he was Maycomb County born and bred…” (6).

Atticus Finch is referred to as Maycomb County because his personality embodies isolation and detachment, which Maycomb County takes pride in it’s detachment from the world.

“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” (39).

Atticus’s lesson to Scout on perspective involves him comparing the understanding of another to climbing into their skin. He makes the point that one needs to first understand before one can judge another.

2)Symbolism

“Summer was on the way; Jem and I awaited it with impatience. Summer was our best season…” (45).

Summer symbolizes freedom from school and the beginning of one’s imagination to bring adventures of all kinds. Summer possesses the association with the character Dill who would come every summer to Maycomb County and play with Scout and Jem.

“They don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (119).

The mockingbird symbolizes the innocence found in every character in the novel. As it is a sin to murder something that creates beauty, it is also a sin to put someone in the limelight that chooses to be unseen and invisible like Boo Radley.

“…there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court” (274).

A court symbolizes equality of all human beings despite sexual or racial differences. Atticus includes this symbolism in his speech to come across to the jury that all prejudices towards his client should be put aside in order to make a fair decision.

3)Simile

“Perhaps Atticus was right, but the events of the summer hung over us like smoke in a closed room” (326).

Tom Robinson’s case will never leave Scout’s memory because it awakened her to the prejudice against Negroes in Maycomb. The comparison of the trial to trapped smoke is painfully true when Scout begins to question the goodness of people’s hearts.

“Well, it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird…” (370).

Subjecting Boo Radley to the public’s eyes is compared to shooting a mockingbird: a sin. Since Boo has only helped and does not want to be in the limelight, he should not be put for display of Maycomb.

4)Direct Characterization

“She was always ordering me out of the kitchen, asking me why I couldn’t behave as well as Jem when she knew he was older, and calling me home when I wasn’t ready to come” (7).

This quote directly characterizes Calpurnia as the mother-figure in Scout’s life, which is evident through Scout’s resistance of Calpurnia’s orders. Calpurnia plays a key role in the Finch’s lives and only time will show Scout how much.