Themes and Issues

Themes and Issues

When writing To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee was concerned about the real human issues that affect all of us. She wanted to tell us about what life was really like for African-Americans in the Deep South. She wanted to tell us what life was like for the poor, children and women in the Deep South and to have a clearer picture of how people do not always treat others as well as they should.

To Kill a Mockingbird therefore, is very much a novel of social comment with a broad range of themes. It is a story about growing up and Lee shows how two children come to have a deeper understanding of the world and the people around them when their innocence is confronted by prejudice and ignorance.

This section provides you with the opportunity to think about the key issues and themes of the novel and work out what Harper Lee is saying to you about each issue.


Key Themes

Courage
Prejudice
Innocence to experience
Education
Gender
Inequality

1. Find one quote from the novel that sums up each theme
2. Are there any other themes you would add?

Working With Themes

Racism

In To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee touches on many social questions. Foremost among these is the problem of racism in the southern states of America in the mid 1930s. The focus for this is the charge brought by Bob Ewell against Tom Robinson and the way in which the anti African-American feeling in Maycomb is the cause of animosity towards Atticus and his family because of his defence of Tom. It is manifested in the Cunninghams' attempt to lynch Tom and Mr Gilmer's contemptuous cross examination in the courtroom. It is also evident in Aunt Alexandra's disapproval of Calpurnia and in the hypocritical attitudes of Miss Gates and the ladies of the Missionary Circle.

The "rigid and time honoured code" of society was that, while, white people could employ and even exploit African-Americans, there could be no personal relationship between African-Americans and whites and no recognition that African-Americans had the same reactions and feelings as white people. Further, there was an evil assumption "that all Blacks lie, that all Blacks are basically immoral beings". They certainly did not have the benefit of the supposed impartiality of the law. The Reverend Sykes says, "I ain't ever seen any jury decide in favour of a coloured man over a white man". Atticus does not understand "why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up" and he calls this emotional attitude "Maycomb's usual disease". Mr Dolphus Raymond talks about "the hell white people give coloured folks, without even stopping to think that they're people too." Atticus fears that "one of these days we're going to pay the bill for it".

1. Which characters in the novel are the symbols of white racial prejudice? How do these characters cope with being victims of the racial prejudice of the whites? 
2. The town of Maycomb as a whole is the symbol of group racial prejudice. How is this illustrated in the novel? 
3. Tom Robinson makes a huge mistake when, during the prosecutor's cross-examination, he says that he "felt right sorry" for Mayella. Why would the whites in the courtroom find this statement so disturbing? 
4. Who is responsible for Tom Robinson's death? What answers do various characters in the novel give to this question? What answer do you think best represents the author's point of view? What do you think? 

Depicting racism through dialogue

The novel is set in the 1930s but was written in the late 1950s. The dialogue is marked by frequent use of the word "nigger". This is a convenient way to indicate to the reader the racist attitudes of various characters. When she wishes to refer to African-Americans, Harper Lee uses the term "coloured". It is not only racist whites who say use the term "nigger", however - at First Purchase church, Calpurnia addresses Lula as "nigger".

Since the novel was published, attitudes have changed about what is acceptable to speak and write. In the trial of O.J. Simpson, the word "nigger" was considered too offensive to repeat in court, and was described as the "N-word".

Q. How is the term "nigger" is used by various characters in the novel?

Since Harper Lee was writing in Alabama in the 1950s, she was herself almost inevitably caught up in ways of thought which many today would regard as racist. If we examine the book carefully, we detect ways in which African Americans are presented unfavourably and patronisingly.

When Calpurnia takes Jem and Scout to church, the three have the following conversation:

'Cal,' I asked, 'why do you talk nigger talk to the - to your folks when you know it's not right?'
'Well, in the first place I'm black.'
'That doesn't mean you hafta talk that way when you know better,' said Jem.
Calpurnia tilted her hat and scratched her head, then pressed her hat down carefully over her ears. 'It's right hard to say,' she said ... 'Now what if I talked white folks' talk at church, and with my neighbours? They'd think I was puttin' on airs to beat Moses.'
'But Cal, you know better,' I said.
'It's not necessary to tell all you know ... You're not gonna change any of them by talkin' right, they've got to want to learn themselves, and when they don't want to learn there's nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language.'

Atticus says this to Scout:

'As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life ... There's nothing more sickening to me than a low grade white man who'll take advantage of a Negro's ignorance.'

1. Scout and Jem refer to African-Americans as "niggers". How does Harper Lee encourage us to respond?
2. Scout refers to the way the African-Americans speak as being wrong. (a) Why would she believe it to be wrong?  (b) What is Calpurnia's response to this observation? 
3. There is also implicit racism in the way African-Americans are presented in these extracts.     (a) Which characters behave actively?                                                                                             (b) Which characters behave passively? (are acted upon)                                                           (c) Which group's point of view is missing?                                                                               (d) What is the response of the African-Americans in Calpurnia's church to their lack of educational opportunity?                                                                                                             (e) Are African-Americans shown in the novel as resisting the prejudice they experience? Explain. 

The novel presents African Americans as passive victims who accept the prejudice they experience. Atticus implies that it is up to white Americans to change the situation.

Challenging the text

One way to challenge racism in a text is to rewrite it. Groups that have been silenced in the original can have a say in the rewriting. Attitudes now regarded as racist can be challenged or presented differently. Imagine that Atticus says:


'As you grow older, you'll see white people cheat black people every day of your life. At the moment it's hard for African Americans to resist because the law is against them. But there are many groups whore working hard against this. Have been doing so ever since the Underground Railway* was set up by African-Americans to help those who were in slavery escape.'

(*An organisation which smuggled escaped slaves from the southern states to freedom in the northern states where slavery had been abolished.)

1. Which groups previously left out (silenced), are now included in this text? 
2. How does the presentation of African-Americans in this text differ from the original? Growing Up - Innocence to Experience

Innocence and Experience

The larger moral questions of the book are explored from the perspective of children. In a sense, the plot of the story charts Scout's moral education and how she moves from innocence to adulthood. This theme is explored most importantly through the parent-child relationships between Atticus and his children, as he devotes himself to instilling conscience in Jem and Scout. Atticus guides them to an understanding of the position of other people by repeatedly telling them they should step into another person's shoes and try to see things from that person's viewpoint.

1. Harper Lee's novel contains many references to children and children's view of life. What is she telling us about the importance of children and childhood? 
2. When Scout thoughtlessly remarks on the impoverished Walter Cunningham's bad table manners, Calpurnia takes her aside and explains: "There's some folks who don't eat like us…but you ain't called on to contradict 'em at the table when they don't. That boy's yo' comp'ny and if he wants to eat up the whole table cloth you let him, you hear?" (p. 27).

(a) What important lesson is Calpurnia imparting to Scout in this scene?
(b) How is this lesson related to the novel's larger themes?
(c) Why is it significant that it comes, in this instance, from Calpurnia?

1. When Scout complains about her teacher, Atticus tells her that "if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it" (p. 33). By the end of the novel, how has Scout come to understand the meaning of Atticus's advice? 

School and Education

Much is said about formal schooling in the novel. Harper Lee gives a very critical view of methods of teaching and of some educational jargon in Chapters 2, 3 and 4, and Atticus voices his criticism of some educational philosophies in his speech to the jury in Chapter 20. Certainly Scout is depicted as learning more from Atticus and Calpurnia and from her experiences outside school than from her formal schooling. The scenes at school provide a direct counterpoint to Atticus's effective education of his children: Scout is frequently confronted with teachers who are either frustratingly unsympathetic to children's needs or morally hypocritical.

1. What does the novel indicate are the main problems with formal schooling and how does Harper Lee illustrate these problems in her novel? 
2. What is ironic about Miss Gate's harsh censure of Hitler's persecution of the Jews? 
3. The motif of literacy - both reading and being unable to read - is intricately woven into much of the plot and conversation. Trace these references and anaylse them. Is the author making a point in returning to the idea repeatedly? 

Courage

Many facets of courage are shown in To Kill a Mockingbird. The physical courage of Atticus facing the Cunningham gang and the mad dog; the spiritual courage of Mrs Dubose, determined to break her addiction to morphine before she dies; the cheerfulness with which Miss Maudie Atkinson accepts the loss of her house through fire; the courage which is required to carry through one's job in the face of antipathy and opposition as Atticus does in taking on the defence of Tom Robinson. Courage involves things like fighting with your head rather than with your fists and living with your own conscience. "It's when you know you're licked before you begin," says Atticus, "but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what".

1.  There are many other examples of courage in To Kill a Mockingbird. How are the following people courageous?
(a) Scout
(b) Tom Robinson,
(c) Dolphus Raymond
(d) Boo Radley
(e) Heck Tate
(f) Judge Taylor
(g) Link Deas
(h) B.B. Underwood
(i) Jem
In your answer, consider the many facets of courage that different characters demonstrate such as:
• physical courage
• spiritual courage
• the courage to stand by your convictions, principles or beliefs, conscience

Prejudice and Bigotry

A dominant theme in the novel is the cruelty that people inflict upon others by the holding of preformed ideas, 'the simple hell people give other people', as Dolphus Raymond puts it. It is not just the matter of the deep racial prejudice which is present in Maycomb but the intolerant, narrow, rigid codes of behaviour that most townspeople wish to impose on others. This bigotry is made all the more menacing by being depicted as 'normal' behaviour by many characters in the book. Against the background of this small town such people as Boo Radley, Dolphus Raymond and, to some extent, Maudie Atkinson, are persecuted because they do not conform. Tom Robinson is found guilty, in the face of very strong suspicion that his accusers are lying, because he went against the accepted position of a Negro and dared to feel sorry for a white person.

The bigotry of some fundamentalist religious sects is touched on in the introduction of the foot washing Baptists who criticize Miss Maudie Atkinson. Her conversation with Scout on this subject leads Scout to think about what is implied by a good and a reasonable life.

Scout also ponders over the lip service paid to the ideal of democracy ('equal rights for all, special privileges for none') when contrasted with the realities of intolerance and prejudice: for example, the horror expressed by Miss Gates at Hitler's persecution of the Jews and her own intolerance of Blacks. This is one of many instances in the novel of the contrast between reason (represented by the character of Atticus) and prejudice, which is born of ignorance and fear.

At different points in the story we find many characters who are misunderstood through ignorance and fear; often this has been the result of gossip. Subsequently, these characters are not what they truly seem to be. Most would write off Boo Radley as a reclusive madman, Miss Dubose as a mean spirited old woman, and Dolphous Raymond as a social deviant. These people are reviled by most, but these are not fair judgments. Once we get beyond the gossip surrounding these people, we get a clear view of some very strong human beings. The major problem with gossip, Lee is saying, is that people rarely stop to check whether they've got their facts right. They often pass on false, misleading and potentially hurtful information that can harm a person's reputation and character.

1. How is prejudice and bigotry inculcated in Maycomb society? 
2. Who are the obvious symbols of tolerance and bigotry in the novel and how are they portrayed in the novel? 
3. Tom Robinson is not the only "victim" in Harper Lee's novel. A number of other characters - major and minor - may be seen as being harmed in some way by the society they live in. Comment on how each of the following may be seen as victims:

(a) Boo Radley
(b) Mayella Ewell
(c) Dill
(d) Mrs Dubose
(e) Dolphous Raymond
(f) "Mixed" children
(g) Scout
(h) All children?
(i) Anyone else?

Consider those characters who are the subject of gossip and as a result are not truly who they seem to be. What is the 'truth' that we, like the children, eventually learn about them?
Explore how Lee has portrayed religion and religious groups in the novel (a starting point is chapters twelve and twenty-five).
(a) Does she convey the idea that many religious groups are hypocritical?
(b) Does she criticize religion itself or some of the people who practice it?
(c) What does Lee say about the nature of Christianity in Maycomb County?

Social Class

Differences in social status are largely explored through the overcomplicated social hierarchy of Maycomb, the ins and outs of which are constantly baffling to the children. The relatively well-off Finches are near the top of Maycomb's social hierarchy, with most of the townspeople beneath them. Ignorant country farmers like the Cunninghams are below the townspeople, and the white trash Ewells are below the Cunninghams. But the black community in Maycomb, despite its abundance of admirable qualities, is below even the Ewells, enabling Bob Ewell to make up for his own lack of importance by persecuting Tom Robinson. Part of the adult world, these rigid social divisions are both irrational and destructive. For example, Scout cannot understand why Aunt Alexandra refuses to let her consort with young Walter Cunningham. Lee uses the children's perplexity at the unpleasant layering of Maycomb society to critique the role of class status, and ultimately prejudice, in human interaction.

1. How do the Maycomb community's views on social status relate to the main themes and issues in the novel? 
2. Jem describes to Scout the four "folks" or classes of people in Maycomb County: "…our kind of folks don't like the Cunninghams, the Cunninghams don't like the Ewells, and the Ewells hate and despise the coloured folks." What do you think of the ways in which Lee explores race and class in 1930s Alabama? What significance, if any, do you think these characterisations have for people living in other parts of the world?