To Kill a Mockingbird: Cry About the Simple Hell

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Question 1: To Kill a Mockingbird The words: “Cry about the simple hell people give other people – without even thinking” go right to the heart of this book. According to Atticus’s point of view, one towards which the children grow in the course of the book, compassion is the only proper response to this tragic fact of human behavior. Give your considerate opinion of this novel in the light of this comment. Please remember to support your statements by means of references to the novel. Your answer must show detailed knowledge of the text. Your essay should be between 1000 and 1400 words. All italic writing is direct quotes from Lee, Harper. 1996. To Kill a Mockingbird. London: Heinemann Educational. Secondary Division, New Windmill Series. Cry about the simple hell… In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee doesn’t limit her portrayal of discrimination only to the trail of Tom Robinson, a victim of racial prejudice, but manages to tie racial prejudice to many other form of prejudice we come in contact with in everyday life, without us even knowing about it. At the beginning of the novel evidence of racial prejudice, that dominates most of the novel, is scarce. Instead the focus is on the prejudice experienced and endured by those who are different than the norm and those who suffer because they dare to be different in a small town. Inside the house lived a malevolent phantom. People said he existed, but Jem and I had never seen him. People said he went out at night when the moon was down, and peeped in windows. When people's azaleas froze in a cold snap, it was because he had breathed on them. Any stealthy small crimes committed in Maycomb were his work. Once the town was terrorized by a series of morbid nocturnal events: people's chickens and household pets were found mutilated; although the culprit was Crazy Addie, who eventually
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