Harper Lee was the youngest of 4 children, she grew up as a tomboy in a small town. Her father was a lawyer, a member of the Alabama state legislature, and also owned part of the local newspaper. For most of Lee’s life, her mother suffered from mental illness, rarely leaving the house. It is believed that she may have had bipolar disorder. One of her closest childhood friends was another writer-to-be, Truman Capote (then known as Truman Persons).
Recently I watched the film “An American Crime”, and it really affected me. This horrifying movie is a true story based on a 1960’s murder case in Indiana involving Sylvia and Jenny Lykins. At ages 15 and 16 these two sisters lived with Gertrude Baniszewski for $20 a week while their parents worked in the traveling circus. Gertrude was poor and already had six children of her own. Several events varying from late babysitting checks to rumors of Sylvia’s promiscuous sex life brought Gertrude to despise Sylvia and punish her.
Mary Eberstadt wrote Eminem is Right. She questions as to why the music today this is angry and violence filled so popular with our teens. Mary looks deeper into the music and farther into the meaning behind the lyrics and discusses them. His songs about women are directly “reserved for his mother and ex-wife Kim” (Eberstadt, 2004). Eminem blames the parents for not spending time with their children is turning them in to delinquents as to it being his music turning them into delinquents.
Mayella Ewell, a white girl, often asked him to help her with her chores and he of course did. One time when he was helping her she kissed him but when her father saw she was embarressed and said he raped her and beat her up. The thing was she had bruises on the left side of her face but Tom was paralyzed in the left arm after he got stuck in a cotton making machine, so he could not have done it. Still the jury convicted him guilty of all charges. Its very likely that he was only found guilty because he was black.
Everyone at some point in their life develops a mask to hide their true feelings, this is often encouraged. In to kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, several characters can be interpreted far enough to see through their mask and into the underlining truth of their thoughts. Dolphus Raymond, a seemingly drunk and disorderly man is later exposed as a man who lies about the reasons for his appearance and activities so they can be accepted by the shallow people of Maycomb, Alabama. “You little folks won’t tell on me now, it’d ruin my reputation if you did” (Lee 227). Raymond speaks of how the children quickly learn that the drink that he always puts in his bag is actually coco-cola and he lies about that so people can understand why he is associating himself with the African-Americans.
5/25/10 Stereotyping In To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson was killed because he was stereotyped. They believed that he beat and raped Mayella Ewell because a white person said so. Many of the characters in the book were stereotyped because of their lifestyles. For example, Dolphus Raymond was stereotyped because he was a drunk. But in reality, he pretended to be a drunk so he can give others a excuse why he likes blacks more than whites.
In the book To Kill a Mockingbird the rape trail of Tom Robinson vs Mayella Ewell, an African American man accused of raping a white teenage girl was held in a bias court room of Maycomb County. Tom Robinson was proven innocent but the end verdict did not match the proof, because no jury would chose to listen to a black man over a white girl due to the state of prejudice Maycomb was under. Racism this town got to the point where when Atticus Finch, a white lawyer chose to represent Tom in the case he was a disgrace and an outcast to the white community. Not only Atticus but his children all suffered from the judgement they were receiving from the whole community for Atticus representing an innocent man. Since children were exposed to this behavior the racism has been passed down to generation to generation.
Prejudice is a preconceived opinion not based on reason or experience. Sometimes prejudice is a destructive force in society. In To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, prejudice is shown in many ways. Prejudice was shown when Atticus was defending the jail, a group of men came to kill Tom and also when Scout was getting teased at school by other kids because her dad was taking Tom’s case. Furthermore, when Tom Robinson was accused of being guilty even though he was not, and died because of it.
The Lovely Bones is a tragic tale of how Susie Salmon and her family dealt with her rape and murder at the age of fourteen. The novel is riveting as it combines violence, love and mystery into one story of a broken family and their healing. The book was written by Alice Sebold who herself was raped during her college years. The story does not have your typical perfect ending but one as Weldon describes, one in which Susie has come to terms with her death. Susie was only fourteen when she was raped and killed by a man she knew.
Question: Every time we read we lose a little piece of innocence. Discuss this proposition with reference to at least one text you have studied this year There are things in life that people don’t want to experience but they can experience it through reading. The loss of innocence is a major theme in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird and this is an experience people can understand through reading. Harper Lees’ narrative text, To Kill a Mockingbird was written in the 1960’s. It is a recount of her childhood in the 1930’s represented through the character Scout and is centered on the conviction of a black man stating that he has raped a girl.