Essay/Term paper: To kill a mocking bird

Essay, term paper, research paper:  To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird



Usually, my method of writing a book review starts off with a quote. However, this time with this particular book I"ve decided to begin with a description of the author. Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926. She studied law along with her father and sister. In her allegorical novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee writes about a young girl in a small southern town by showing the difficulties she will have to face as she grows up.

The author"s purpose is to show us how life isn"t always fair. I strongly agree with her on that for several reasons. For example, look at what happened to Tom Robinson. He was accused of a crime he didn"t commit and then he was killed because someone was lonely. She got him in trouble, which drove him to his death. In this example, life is definitely not fair because he never should have been accused of something he did not do. I could give several examples of smaller, less important situations that have the same theme as this story does "do not harm people who do not harm you."

The setting of this book was in Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930"s. Scout, Jem and Dill spend the summer trying to get Boo Radley out of his house. None of them had ever seen him. Scout started to school and on his way there and back, he and Jem would find gifts in a hole in the tree by the rocky place. Scout and Jem started hearing their father referred to as a "nigger-lover" because he was defending Tom Robinson – a Negro man accused of rape. When Scout, Jem and Calpurnia come home from church, they find Aunt Alexandrea is staying with them for the trial. One night, Atticus mysteriously leaves the house. Scout, Jem, Dill follow him. A lynch mob appears and was trying to force Atticus to let them have the Negro prisoner, but then the kids show up. On the way back from a Halloween pageant, the children were attacked by someone and caused Jem a broken arm.

During the book, Scout changes a lot. She goes from being an immature young girl to a mature young lady. She had a lot to adjust to in this story. For example, Jem felt her was older and too old to hang out with his little sister. This changed Scout because it meant she had to grow up.

The theme of this story is very important. It is "do not harm people who do not harm you". For example, why did some of the characters want Tom Robinson to be found guilty when they knew he was innocent? It doesn"t make sense—for people to want to harm others when they haven"t done anything.

As hard as this is to say, this was a very interesting book—and that"s a lot coming from me considering I am not used to being able to just pick up a book as easy as this was to just pick it up and read it. Usually I am forced into reading but with a book like this it was easy to read. It was exciting and suspenseful because you never know what would happen next.

One part of this book I personally like was when Scout becomes friends with Boo Radley. This is special because Scout gives Boo a chance to prove himself to be a nice person, a chance very few would give him. The most believable character in this book has to be Atticus. He said to Scout, "When one stands in someone else"s shoes, than one can see things from that person"s point of view. This man has a full time job as a lawyer, has two kids, and has to deal with the strenuous Tom Robinson case. He does everything he possible could do in this case. This is a perfect example of life today. I think the moral of this story is to inform people not to harm the people who do not harm you. As Atticus says, "Never kill a mockingbird." This book can reach out to so many people.