To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird

Introduction

Being born on the 28th of April 1926, Nelle Harper Lee the author of this book was brought up in a small town Monroeville which had a lot of similarities with the town Maycomb, on which the story revolves around. This book contains a lot of situations which are mere representations of authors own life e.g. the trial in this book was actually influenced by the trial that actually took place during Lee's childhood in Alabama in the year 1931, when nine black men were accused as they were blamed for raping 2 white women. Though the allegations were based on no strong proof, the accused were still punished as 5 of them were sentenced until they came to a final decision that the men were wrongly charged. The Scottsboro Boys case has a strong influence on the trial case of Tom Robinson, as there are many similarities (Johnson, 1994). The major driving tools which enforced lee to write this novel could arguably be the Scottsboro Boys case and the racism and prejudice experienced at that point and time (Lee, 2000).

Discussion

The story revolves around a brother and a sister, Jem and Scout who live with their father Atticus in the town of Alabama. The widowed father is a lawyer. Jem and Scout become friends with Dill who came to the neighborhood to spend his summer and became very curious and fascinated after hearing about the famous Radley Place owned by Mr.Nathan Radley, where Arthur brother of Nathan has been living for years and is never seen outside. The kids had mysterious perceptions about the house and the people living in it, since whenever they would pass by, they would be allured by looking at the presents left for them hanging on the tree in the house and even got shot once by Nathan for entering the property.

With the persistent racial discriminations in Alabama, Atticus decided to fight a case for a black man who was charged for a rape attempt on a white woman. Because of this Jem and Scout faced a lot of criticism from the other kids, which made it very difficult for them to stay in the town. The trial began next summer and tom was jailed where he had to face violence from a large group of people, though there were no strong grounds for his sentence. The jury didn't believe in the defendant that he was propositioned by the girl as she wanted to cover her shame in front of her father and the white men jury did not decide in the favor of tom (Bloom, 2004). When tom tried to escape from the jail he was shot to death.

Claimants father Bob still felt he has been unfairly judged, because of which he retaliated and acted unreasonable with Tom's wife, tried to enter the judge's house and attacked Scout and Jem, who were rescued by Boo during the attack. In the course of action Ewell accidently got ...