To Kill a Mockingbird
Kyra Johanns
Racism
In the Novel To Kill a Mockingbird, racism was a big part all through this novel. This novel took place in the 1930's in Maycomb Alabama. This small town is full of racist people. These people are so racist they will start lies about black people for no reason! This was a very big part of the book throughout the whole entire book, from the beginning to the end.
At the beginning of the novel, racism was horribly bad. Everybody had their eyes set on one thing and one thing only, they hated black people. In the beginning of the novel Scout, and Jem didn't really know any different, than to not like black people. They didn't really know much about black people. The first time they ever were associated with black people was when they went to First Purchase Church. That was very eye opening for Scout and Jem because the black people were so nice to them, and welcoming to Scout and Jem even though they were white, and in the black church.
Atticus was always a stickler about being respectful. He wanted Jem and Scout to treat people as they would want to be treated. This rule followed through weather the people were black or white. Atticus also wanted his children to never give up on something even if they knew they would fail. That part of his parenting for Jem and Scout was proven when Atticus chose to be Tom Robinson's Lawyer. Atticus wanted to stand up for Tom Robinson because he knew that, that was the right thing to do for Tom. Atticus wanted the town to open up their eyes enough to see that Tom Robinson was an innocent black male. That took a lot of courage for somebody to do at that time. This theme of "Racism" relates to my other theme "Courage" because you had to have a lot of courage to stand up to racism, and that's just what Atticus did.
Courage
In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Courage was not a big part thoughout this novel. In this book nobody had very much courage. Everybody was so caught up in agreeing with other people even if they knew it was wrong. Nobody had an ounce of courage to stand up for a black person that was on their death bed because they didn't want to be that one person against the whole entire town.
When Tom Robinson had been accused of raping Mayella, he had no hope. He knew that he didn't rape her, but since he was black there was no way that he was going to get out of this without going to jail for the rest of his life or getting sentenced to death. But there was one person that got that ounce of courage. That person was Atticus Finch. Atticus knew that this was wrong, because he knew how the Ewell's were. Atticus knew he wouldn't win the trial but he wanted to fight for something that was wrong in his eyes. He wanted to fight for what he believed in, he wanted to give Tom Robinson a chance at life again.
This theme "Courage" relates to my other theme "Racism" because it took a lot of courage to stand up to a town full of racist people. Through this novel nobody had courage to even try to see what was wrong with the way the blacks were treated as a whole. But Atticus did, and he wanted to make sure that he showed that to his two kids, Scout and Jem.
This novel related strongly based on racism and courage. The name of this novel in "To Kill a Mockingbird." Throughout the whole book I didn't really catch on to why it would be named about a bird, when the book was nothing about killing a mockingbird! At the end though, it came to me when it compared a mockingbird to the situation that happened at the end of the book when Boo Radley saved Scout and Jem. This relates to a mockingbird because it symbolizes innocence and how Boo may have been a hero, but it didn't need to be made a big deal because Boo wasn't the type of person to be put in the spotlight.