Month: May 2015

Harper Lee uses details in this passage  to present Miss Maudie’s view of Maycomb by using Atticus as an example. Miss Maudie explains to Jem that, “some men in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your Father is one of them.” This refers to Atticus being a Lawyer and how it is a unpleasant job because it involves a lot of racism and not many people want to do it. Also she tries to explain that there are good people in Maycomb like herself and Atticus.

Harper Lee shows that a small town like Maycomb has a lot of racism in it and also its quite scary because everybody knows everyone’s business. In Maycomb, the black people are separated from white people because white people think that black people are the inferior race in America in the 1930’s. Another reason why Maycomb is scary is because of people like Bob Ewell. This is because he tries to kill Atticus and almost succeeds if it wasn’t for Boo Radley. In such a small town the news spreads quickly so everybody finds out by morning.

The position of Jem, Scout and Aunt Alexander in a social class is that they are middle to upper class people. This is because Aunt Alexander is quite posh and she does not want Jem and Scout to mix with lower classes. Also she really wants Scout to become a lady from a very young age. Atticus is a lawyer which is a high profile job and he earns quite a bit of money and so he has a nice house etc. Aunt Alexander is more posh than Atticus but they all still have a high profile in society.

Harper Lee uses allusion in To Kill a Mockingbird when she says the Jews are being locked up like prisoners just because they were Jewish. This is a direct link about how Hitler locked up the Jews for no good reason.  It shows how the Maycomb community can see how prejudice Hitler is but they cannot see that in their own community.