To Kill a MockingbirdReader ResponseAn adaptation from a book wrote by Harper Lee, ??? To Kill a Mockingbird??? was managed to be produce into a new element by Robert Mulligan who improvise the handwritten subject into a matter of a living action in 1962. Taken from the ideologist of the 60??™s, Harper Lee was able to make a link in her novel regarding the issues of the crucial issues in the socialization back there.
The behaviour and attitude of racist began to spread in the mind of the societies after a few of crisis happened such as the Scottsboro Case ??“ the case of nine black peoples who was accused of raping two white woman that worked as a prostituted and a clerk respectively, the second crisis occurred in The Case of Emmit Till ??“ a young kid who was bitten to death by a grocery keeper by unreasonable cause. These cases took part as the catalyser to the corrupted thinking of the human being whose believe that they have the superiority towards the society. The characters in to Kill a Mockingbird have the common figure and bring quite the same storyline with a novel wrote by John Grisham. In to Kill a Mockingbird, we have Mr. Atticus Finch, a middle-age lawyer who needs to defend a black man who was accused for raping a daughter of a farmer, Mayella Ewell. Atticus wasn??™t only has to deal with the case but he also need to face with the white peoples in Maycomb as they have opposite idea and thinking with Atticus. The same idea and story line was brought up into another novel, ??? A Time to Kill??? written by John Grisham. In his novel, John Grisham has his own ways on highlighting the idea of the racism.
The idea was putted in the matter regarding to the state of law that bring up a case involving the two main ethnics in America which the white and the black. In this novel, it tells about a two ideas colliding with each others in bringing up the justice in the society without comprising the ethnicity of the people. Jake Brigance, a young hotshot lawyer who is tasked to defend a black father who took the law into his hands after two white drunks raped his little girl. Due to the racial politics of the time, Brigance was not only have to fight a seemingly unwinnable case, but also have to face the dangers of defending a black man inside a racist community. Brigance need to pull out his utmost effort in order to create the justice and gained the trust from the people around him as a good lawyer. His effort began to crumble when there was a third party involved throughout his case. The story however gives a brief exposure to the Klu Klux Klan which happened to be one the crisis faced by the society.
In other perspective, racism mostly occurred in a small town such as in Maycomb, Alabama – a fiction town discovered by Harper Lee in her writing. Maycomb was a small town where most of the people know each other. The setting plays a great role in any of the story or reading materials that we have.
In to Kill a Mockingbird, it is easy to highlight the idea and the propaganda of racist as it focused into a small society made up from small populations. The same issue happened in a movie directed by Boaz Yakin, a story about uniting the people from different colour in a game. ??? Remember the Titans??? was also held up in a setting of a small sculpture from the eyes of the viewer. Even, in ??? Remember the Titans???, the scope was getting smaller when Boaz Yakin focused the issue of racist in the mind of the school teenagers. It gives the exposure from the mind of the people who didn??™t really get out from the place they were staying and give them a new motivation to get out from their customary to gain a better look to the world and widen up their mind about the acceptance of the black people.
One of the biggest themes that we have in ??? to Kill a Mockingbird??? is the existence of social inequality. Differences in social status are exposed to the complicated social hierarchy in Maycomb, either the inner or the outside which constantly baffle the children. The statement of telling about the hierarchy in the social puts the Finch family in the elite group that stands near the top of Maycomb??™s social hierarchy, with most of the town people below them. Ignorant country farmer like the Cunningham lies below the townspeople and the Ewell??™s family below them. The rigid social divisions that make up so much of the adult world are revealed to be both irrational and destructive. However, the black community in Maycomb, squats below the Ewell because of the abundance of admirable qualities towards the society. The same situation did happen in a movie directed by Terry George in 2004 ??“ Hotel Rwanda, a story based on real life events 1994, Rwanda.
The story was related with ??? to Kill a Mockingbird??? where they have the same ideas and themes which is the social inequality. In ??? Hotel Rwanda???, the inequality happened when there was a tribe in Rwanda who believed that they have the superiority to conquer the country. Paul Rusesabagania, the manager of the Sabena Hotel des Mille Collines is Hutu, but his wife Tatiana is a Tutsi. In this movie, Paul was viewed as the ethnic group in the society where lots of people rely on him both the Hutu and the Tutsi. In another hand, the Hutu in the Rwanda believe that they were the native in Rwanda and have the right to the land and planned on keeping away the Tutsi from their land. The Tutsi however turned out to be the lower class people who crawl underneath the Hutu for the sake of their life.
The inequality happened when the Tutsi didn??™t get their own right to protect their self. They were being suppressed by the Rwandan soldier. The idea of racism was instil in a book written by the late Ronald Segal, a Jew involved in the struggle for liberation in South Africa. In his preface to The Black Diaspora, he believes that a people with a past infused by oppression and suffering is charged with a special responsibility, to remember and remind, to redeem that past with a creative meaning, to recognise and insist that we must treat one another as equally human, beyond differences of race or rationality, religion or culture, if we are not to become beast that talk. The Black Diaspora is a story about the African-descended people outside Africa, spanning more than five centuries and a dozen countries of settlement.
He examines every inch of the life of the black people around the world. He describes the various ways in which the system of slavery developed. Segal also details the course of the struggle against colonial rule and the racial oppressions of self-styled democracies. The same situation was highlighted in To Kill a Mockingbird when the black did not get their right as human as the same one got by the white. Harper Lee instils the idea of where the black was suppressed by the white in the society. She even did show us on how the black was treated by the white where she puts Tom Robinson in a place that he could be easily humiliated by the Ewell after he was accused of raping Mayella without any of the concrete evidence.
The kind of treatment given to Tom??™s family can be seen through the language used by the white, once, Bob Ewell came to Tom??™s house to meet with Atticus, he harshly called Tom??™s son and asked him to get Atticus with no manner. The behaviour clearly magnified the attitude of the prejudice happened in the society in Harper Lee??™s writing. People should be treated equally no matter what their status are to remain in harmony. The same situation did happen in the real life in the past during the 60??™s where nine black people was accused of raping two white women in Alabama in 1931. The case was believed to be handled with injustice and more towards the racial thinking of the people.
The case happened on March 25, 1931. The nine black people were accused of raping two white women; the trial was first heard in Scottsboro, Alabama in three rushed trials in which the defendants received poor legal representation. All but the twelve year old, Roy Wright were convicted of rape and sentenced to death, the common sentence in Alabama at the time for black men convicted of raping. The state where Tom Robinson was putted in to Kill a Mockingbird after he was accused of raping a white poor girl, Mayella Ewell.
In the Scottsboro trial, the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed seven of the eight convictions, and granted thirteen year old Eugene Williams a new trial because he was a juvenile. After a few trials, the verdict was the same: guilty. The cases were tried for three times. For the third time, the charges were finally dropped for four of the nine defendants. All but two served prison sentences.
One was shot in prison by a guard. Two escaped, were charged to with crimes and were sent back to prison. Clarence Norris, the oldest defendant and the only one sentenced to death, escaped parole and went into hiding in 1946. He was pardoned by George Wallace in 1976 after he was found. The last surviving defendant died in 1989. Different with the situations happened to Tom when he was shot to death while trying to climb over the prison fence right in front of the guard when he was found guilty for the accused made.
The law was injustice for him that he tried to escape from the sentence that wasn??™t his doing. The racial discrimination did not just end during the 60??™s the racial issues continuously happened until now. The current racial issues happened in East St. Louis, Illinois where it involved an African American family and a waiter from the Denny??™s Restaurant.
The African American family sued the restaurant chain for racial discrimination and has been awarded $600, 000 in damages by the federal jury. Sandra Green informed that when her family when out to eat at Denny??™s Restaurant, a white waiter deliberately ignored them and used racial slurs when the family finally did get service. The same situation did happen to the black family in to kill a mockingbird when the family was ignored and none of the white people helped them during the trial of Tom Robinson except for Atticus Finch. The black were suppressed by the white that they don??™t even have the guts to stand up for their right. However, the situation is completely different today when the black has been given the authority of having the same treatment as the white. Just like what have been done by Sandra Green, the one who sued Denny??™s Restaurant for thee misbehave of the waiter towards her family. People now have realised about the value that they have inside them. They got their own pride to be taken care of by their self.
They believe that they should stand up for their right as human being who have the same equal right in their life. Hence, we can conclude that the behaviour or act of racist have no benefit at all to human being as it only lead to hatred and vengeance in a community that we are living in. People however couldn??™t see the bad influences behind all this mess that they have created.
The racial issue could not be taken as a simple matter because it is just like a nuclear that can lead to a very enormous problem inside our society.
