To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee

Harper Lee: Then and Now

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Autobiographical Nature of Text

Lee’s Childhood Scout’s Childhood

1930s; rural Alabama 1930s; rural Alabama

Her father was an attorney Her father, Atticus Finch, is an attorney

Avid reader and tomboy Avid reader and tomboy

Playmates were brother and neighbor (Truman Capote)

Playmates are brother Jem and neighbor Dill

Six years old during Scottsboro trials

Six years old during Tom Robinson’s trial

The Great Depression

Stock market crash in 1929

1933-thirteen million Americans unemployed

750,000 farmers lost their land

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Perceptions of African Americans in the South (1930’s)

Considered second-class citizens

Absolute segregation of blacks and whites

Blacks held only menial (low-class, servile) jobs

Blacks were considered lazy, untrustworthy liars

Jim Crow

System of racial segregation in South from 1877-1960s

1896 Plessy v. Ferguson: Supreme Court Case ruled “separate but equal”

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Scottsboro Trial

9 boys, aged 13-19 Accused of rape by two

white women Unfair trial

No evidence All white jury

Death penalty

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Scottsboro Trial Parallels

Scottsboro Trials Tom Robinson’s Trial

1930s 1930s

Northern Alabama Southern Alabama

Began with a charge of rape made be two white women against 9 African American men

Begins as a charge of rape made by a white woman by against an African American man

Judge angered public by trying to give black men fair trial

Atticus arouses anger by defending Tom Robinson

The Civil Rights Movement: A Chronology

1954 Brown v. Topeka Board of Education rules “separate is inherently unequal”

1955 Emmett Till lynchingRosa Parks begins bus boycott

1957 Court-ordered desegregation

1960 To Kill a Mockingbird is published

1963 Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech

1964 Civil Rights Act is passed

Reading the Text Read with historical

framework (1930s setting and 1960 publication)

Racially-charged language

Bildungsroman: novel of formation; a text that traces a character’s moral, psychological, and social development from childhood to maturity

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