To Kill a Mockingbird Essay

Why did Harper Lee use quotations from her novel To Kill A Mockingbird to bring up topics such as racism and classism.   The answer is very simple; she wanted to have her characters give a lasting impression to the audience by having them question their morals by seeing similarities and differences between them and the characters of the story.   The most noticeable topic brought up in the story was racism.   Whether it be Tom Robinson being unjustly tried because he was an African American, or the fact blacks and whites had separate churches.   Some of the characters were not prejudice, but most were.   In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird, she used many quotations from key characters to bring up her thematic topics such as racism.
Harper Lee used many characters to be examples of racism for the novel to be authentic to the period which the story took place.   A way of telling a character was a racist was seeing how they reacted to Atticus defending Tom Robinson at the trial.   Characters like Bob Ewill, were angry at Atticus for defending a black man, while characters like Ms. Maudie had no problem with it.   For some characters, like Heck Tate, it was much harder to determine if he had any problem with Atticus and Tom Robinson.   Ms. Dubose uses a quotation that shows how she is clearly annoyed by Atticus defending Tom Robinson.   “Yes indeed, what has the world come to when a Finch goes against his raisings.   I’ll tell you, your father is no better than the Negroes and trash he works for.”(117)   This quotation shows the anger of some people toward Atticus when he takes Tom Robinson’s case.   Atticus was just doing what he thought was right and he was being judged by the town for it.   Most of the racism throughout the book is clearly seen in the words or actions towards another.
There were characters that were without a doubt, racist, but some characters were not.   The obvious ones were Atticus Finch, Ms. Maudie, and the children.   The book revolves around the...