Introduction:To Kill a

MockingbirdBy Harper Lee

SETTING OF THE NOVEL

• Southern United States• 1930’s

– Great Depression– Prejudice and legal segregation– Ignorance

Southern Mentality

• Family values• Hospitality• Gossip

1930’s - 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.”

Social Class in the Novel

Wealthy

Country Folk

"White Trash"

BlackCommunity

This is probably similar to how class structure existed during the 1930’s 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

Racial prejudice was alive & well. Although slavery had ended in

1864, old ideas were slow to change.

Racial separation (segregation)

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

Legal Issues of the 1930’s which impact the story

• Women given the 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

Legal Segregation in Alabama, 1923-1940

• No white female nurses in hospitals that treat black men

• Separate passenger cars for whites and blacks

• Separate waiting rooms for whites and blacks

• Separation of white and black convicts

• Separate schools• No interracial marriages• Segregated water fountains • Segregated theatres

Prejudice in the novel

Race

Gender

Handicaps

Rich/Poor

Age

Religion

Main Characters Scout (Jean Louise Finch) – six years, old

narrator of story

Jem (Jeremy Finch) – her older brother

Atticus Finch – Jem and Scout’s father, a prominent lawyer who defends a black man accused of raping a white woman

Arthur (Boo) Radley – a thirty-three-year-old recluse who lives next door

Charles Baker (Dill) Harris – Jem and Scout’s friend who comes to visit his aunt in Maycomb each summer

Tom Robinson – a respectable black man accused of raping a white woman

Calpurnia – the Finches’ black cook

Language• Sometimes the language of Scout will be that of her as a child;

other times, she will be speaking in the voice of an adult• Atticus uses formal speech• Calpurnia uses “white language” in the Finch house and

switches to “black jargon” when amidst blacks• The Ewells use foul words and obscenities• Jem, Scout, and Dill will use slang words, typical of their age• Tom Robinson uses language typical of the southern black

such as “suh” for “sir” and “chillun” for “children”• Various derogatory terms for blacks will be used such as

“nigger,” “darky,” “Negroes,” and “colored folk” – Lee uses such language to keep her novel naturally in sync with common language of the times

Reading Notes

• While you are reading, take notes on the following five topics:

1. Injustice

2. Jem and Scout growing up

3. Words of Wisdom

4. Conflict

5. Family relations

"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."