To Kill a Mockingbird: Literary Analysis

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee conveys that discrimination is inevitable through

her establishment of context, perspective, and expression of the theme.

Harper Lee connects context to discrimination by setting it in a small town in Alabama in

the 1930s, a time and place where racism was extremely prevalent. This is because the ideas

behind Slavery and the Civil War of the 1860s were still commonly shared ones. The civil rights

movement of the 1950-60s is right around the corner and even this tiny town, revolution is

slowly starting to rise. An example of this would be when Atticus just accepted the job of being

Tom’s lawyer and people were insulting him and his family: " ‘Scout,’ said Atticus, ‘nigger-lover

is just one of those terms that don't mean anything—like snot-nose. It's hard to

explain—ignorant, trashy people use it when they think somebody's favoring Negroes over and

above themselves. It's slipped into usage with some people like ourselves when they want a

common, ugly term to label somebody.’ ‘You aren't really a nigger-lover, then, are you?’ ‘I

certainly am. I do my best to love everybody... I'm hard put, sometimes—baby, it's never an

insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person

is, it doesn't hurt you.’ " (Lee, 107-109). This piece of evidence exhibits just how different

Atticus was from the rest of Maycomb’s population and that he was one of the first signs of the

civil rights movement. It is easy to comprehend this from this extract of To Kill a

Mockingbird because he explains to Scout how the derogatory terms that their family was being

called was an obvious sign of ignorance and how he always puts love over skin color. This

proves that the context in this book leaves the reader believing that discrimination is inevitable

because even though Atticus is committing a good deed by helping another innocent person in
danger, people still discriminate, even in this moment of extreme delicacy. A quote that better

explains the context of this book would be when Atticus was practicing and trying to become a

lawyer: “Atticus practiced economy more than anything” (Lee, 5). This patently displays an

allusion to the Great Depression of the 1930s, which is the backdrop of the setting of Lee’s

novel. Scout narrates that when her father began his law practice in Maycomb, during his first

five years he was practicing economy more than law. This hints that Atticus probably became a

lawyer because it paid well and he needed the money, not because it was his actual passion.

Another quote that connects context to discrimination would be: “Secretly, Miss Finch, I'm not

much of a drinker, but you see they could never, never understand that I live like I do because

that's the way I want to live” (Lee, 268). This quote reveals just how extreme discrimination was

back then; a white man (Mr. Raymond) had to pretend to be a drunk so that the townspeople

won’t object to his black mistress. This would never occur in this modern-day society because

nowadays people are much more open-minded and discrimination is not allowed anymore since

everyone is free to do and marry whomever they want in most countries. This

discernibly proves that the context in this book leaves the reader believing that discrimination is

inevitable because Maycomb was a bigoted, close-minded small town and, especially in the

1930s, was very racist.

Harper Lee addresses discrimination through perspective by presenting the readers with

different perspectives with the use of dialogue while keeping a consistent point of view: Scout’s.

For example, Tom Robinson was a victim of severe discrimination just because of certain

prejudices different people had on people of color in general: “There’s something in our world

that makes men lose their heads—they couldn’t be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it’s a
white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins” (Lee 331). This tiny extract

from To Kill a Mockingbird exhibits the perspective of Atticus Finch, Tom’s lawyer. He explains

how prejudice on the side of the jury, and court in general, is unfair but inevitable due to them

growing up in a bigoted context. In court, all decisions must be made based on evidence, a fair

trial, and the common law system. Pre-made decisions about a person or a sort of group of

people are prohibited because they result in an unjust conviction, exactly like the one Tom

unfortunately received. The various perspectives that the people of the jury had on Tom made it

very hard for Atticus to prove him guilty, even with more than sufficient evidence to support his

point. Another quote that exhibits the discrimination through different perspectives in this small

southern town would be when Lula said this: “You ain’t got no business bringin’ white chillun

here—they got their church, we got our’n. It is our church, ain’t it, Miss Cal?” (Lee,

158). Differentiating from the first quote, this one is from the perspective of a woman of color.

After so many people discriminating against her because of their unexplained prejudices, people

of color also start to discriminate against white people for protection. The language used in this

extract made it clear that people of color talked very differently from white people. Harper Lee

made it easy to understand who was a person of color and who was not by presenting us with

slang and made-up words, making it easy to understand that these people were not very

educated, maybe even illiterate. This is because black people either had to go to different, worse

schools than white people, some didn’t even go to school because they were not allowed, another

fact which proves the point of prejudices interfering with people’s perspective about other

people. In this book, derogatory terms are used against people of color to further discriminate

against them. Another example of this would be something that Mr. Ewell said: “I seen that
black ni**er yonder ruttin' on my Mayella" (Lee, 231). Without a doubt, this quote arrays how

Mr. Ewell views people of color as in this particular case Tom Robinson; worthless. This is not

the only example of derogatory terms in this book, they are consistent. This is because Harper

Lee wanted to portray that discrimination was not a rare thing, more like an everyday

occurrence, and that white people viewed black people as less than them for all the lies about

them that they were fed during their childhood. This visibly demonstrates that the perspective in

this book leaves the reader believing that discrimination is inevitable because it displays the

different viewpoints of the inhabitants of Maycomb who are involved with the Tom Robinson

case. This helps us further comprehend the actions or decisions of the characters and the reason

behind this hatred towards people of color.

The main theme of the book To Kill a Mockingbird is that harming innocent or good

people, in general, is a terrible thing and should never be done. This is also where the book got

its name from: “ ‘Your father’s right,’ she said ‘Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make

music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s garden, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do

one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a Mockingbird ” (Lee, 117).

In this quote, Ms. Maudie is trying to explain to Scout the reason for which killing a

mockingbird is a sin, which is because they do absolutely nothing but good and therefore there is

no reason to kill them. This serves as a metaphor throughout the whole book with the

mockingbird being Tom Robinson and the mockingbird killer/hunter being the all-white jury

unfairly and racistly convicting him of a false accusation of rape. This is because Tom Robinson

never harmed anyone in Maycomb, was always quiet and respectful, and only did good deeds to

Mayella but, since he was black, the jury still decided to condemn him even though all evidence
pointed towards him not being able to have done it. There is only one more mockingbird in this

book, his name is Boo Radley; a mysterious man which seldom comes out of his house unless

it’s to help someone else: “Atticus believes Jem killed Ewell in self-defense, but Tate makes him

realize that Boo Radley stabbed Ewell and saved both children’s lives. The men agree to claim

that Ewell fell on his knife to save Boo the spectacle of a trial” (Lee, 365). Although Boo is

considered strange, he shows his human kindness when he protects Jem and Scout. Scout sees a

human side to Boo. The quote stated above doubtlessly demonstrates that he is the other

mockingbird because even though he only did good by saving the lives of two children, he has to

hide it because people might punish him for it. This proves that the theme in this book leaves the

reader believing that discrimination is inevitable because of Tom Robinson and being completely

and utterly harmless but still getting discriminated against for his skin color.