The Divided World of To Kill A Mockingbird

1. The Divided World ofTo Kill A Mockingbird An introduction to the setting and social issues confronted in Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird.

2. To Kill a Mockingbird is . . . A picture of American society seen through the eyes of Scout Finch, an eight-year-old girl in Maycomb, Alabama. Scout’s world is divided, segmented, and separated by:social class, race, gender, and age.

3. To Kill a Mockingbird is . . . • A Bildungsroman • Meaning: A novel of growing up & maturing • German: Bildung=maturing; Roman=novel • In a Bildungsroman, the central character grows from a state of innocence and naïveté to one of experience and enlightenment. • It is a coming-of-age novel, about the journey of becoming an adult.

4. The Author: Harper Lee • She wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, her first and only novel, in 1960 while working in the reservations department of an overseas airline. • She based the novel on her experiences growing up in Monroeville, Alabama. • Lee was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961.

5. The Setting Two things define the world of the novel: • The American South • The Great Depression of the 1930s

6. A Different World: Prejudice • Even though we can identify with Scout’s character and experiences, her world is dramatically different from ours. • Today, we discourage prejudice—in Scout’s world, it was assumed, acknowledged, and encouraged. There were even laws that enforced prejudice!

7. Jim Crow Laws • The Jim Crow Laws were a racial caste system (a system that separates people into levels of society) that operated primarily but not exclusively in southern and border states from 1877 through the 1960s. • Many states could impose legal punishments on people for consorting (having social contact) with members of another race. • Laws forbade interracial marriage. • Laws ordered business owners and public institutions to keep black and white clients separated.

8. Examples of Jim Crow Laws • African Americans were not allowed to vote. • All interaction between races was restricted. • Water fountains • Door entrances & exits • Separate hospitals, churches, prisons and public schools • Separate public restrooms • In all instances these separate accommodations were inferior to those given to Caucasians. In some cases, there were no facilities offered at all.

9. The Use of the “N” Word • It should be no surprise that novel set in the racist atmosphere of 1930s Alabama contains repeated use of the “N” word. • It is right to feel uncomfortable with this word. • The use of this word does NOT mean that Harper Lee was racist. In a novel about tense racial and social issues in the 1930s south it is Lee’s responsibility to correctly reflect the beliefs and language of the people she is writing about.

10. A Different World: Social Life In Scout’s hometown, there are specific social expectations. • Children must be very polite to all white adults. Any adult has the right to scold and/or punish any disrespectful child. • People must be friendly and hospitable. On Sundays, neighbors visit each other; it’s rude to have your doors closed, as that looks like you don’t want to socialize. • Everyone goes to church. • Men work to support their families; women stay at home, care for their families, & visit friends. • Anyone who doesn’t do these things is viewed with suspicion.

11. Social Class Hierarchy in Maycomb, Alabama “Somewhere I had received the impression that Fine Folks were people who did the best they could with the sense they had, but Aunt Alexandria was of the opinion . . .that the longer a family had been squatting on one patch of land the finer it was” (130).

12. A Comfortable World Even though Scout’s world may sound stifling and cruel, there are many good things about it, too: • Neighbors help one another through tough times. • The community is close-knit; everybody knows everybody else’s business, but they also care about each other. • There are people who don’t share their community’s prejudices and who fight against them.

13. A “Outside” World: The Great Depression • A depression is a period of drastic decline in an economy, with less business activity, falling prices (so people don’t make as much money) and high levels of unemployment. • The Great Depression in America began with a stock market crash in 1929 and didn’t end until 1941. • Millions of people who once had enough money were now poor. People who had been poor became only poorer.

14. Life in the Depression • Because of the Depression, some children in Scout’s class at school have no food to bring for lunch and no money to buy one. • Many children can’t pass the first grade because every year they have to leave school to help their families with the farming. • Some of her father’s law clients can’t pay him in money; instead, they give him things from their farms—such as firewood.

15. A poor farmer’s wife and child. A poor man’s transportation

16. Movie theater in an Alabama town. A highway signboard: “Less Taxes- More Jobs”

17. A typical downtown area. A street like the one Scout lives on.

18. Maycomb, Alabama This is the world we enter in To Kill a Mockingbird—the world of the Finch family: eight-year old Scout, her twelve-year-old brother Jem, their black cook Calpurnia, and their father, Atticus Finch, a lawyer in the town.