To Kill a Mockingbird Analysis

The title of the book is To Kill a Mockingbird, so mockingbirds must be important, right? But why? Let’s look at a few passages to try to figure out some answers to that question.Mockingbirds...

To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in the fictional small Southern town of Maycomb in the 1930s (Tom’s trial takes place in 1935). Slavery and the Civil War of the 1860s still loom large in th...

Our first-person narrator is Scout Finch, who is five when the story begins and eight when it ends. From the first chapter, though, it’s clear that Scout is remembering and narrating these ev...

To Kill a Mockingbird is first and foremost Scout’s coming-of-age story. Over the course of the novel she learns to act in a more adult way, even a more ladylike way, and to see the people ar...

How can the tone be both naïve and ironic? Cue Scout, talking about Aunt Alexandra.I never understood her preoccupation with heredity. Somewhere, I had received the impression that Fine Folks...

Scout’s narration usually doesn’t comment much on the action, just presents what happens as a series of facts. Here’s an example.Aunt Alexandra sat down in Calpurnia's chair and p...

The title of To Kill a Mockingbird comes from something both Atticus and Miss Maudie tell Jem and Scout: “it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (10.7, 10.9). There’s more on moc...

“Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.” – Charles LambFirst off, it’s from an essay by Charles Lamb, an English writer in the late-18th and early-19th century. But what do...

With Ewell out of the way, all is smooth sailing for the Finches, right? Well, perhaps. While Ewell’s death may end the immediate threat to their well-being, there’s a whole lot of Mayc...

The Finches are part of the Maycomb community.This is where the story begins, and also the base state that gets disrupted and questioned as the story progresses. The place of the Finches in Maycomb...

Tom waits in jail for his trial to begin, knowing that even though he’s got the best defense attorney in Maycomb, he’s still 99.99% sure to be convicted.Tom’s in a holding pattern...

Atticus makes it clear to Maycomb that he’s going to defend Tom Robinson to the best of his ability.The Robinson case goes to trial and the jury finds Tom guilty.Ewell attacks the Finch child...

Despite repeated requests, Harper Lee has refused to write a foreword for her novel, saying that it speaks for itself. (Source)Harper Lee wrote the novel after her friends gave her a year’s s...

Pg-13 for mention of rape, sexual violence, and implied incest. Even though it’s almost certain that Tom’s rape of Mayella never actually happened, Mayella and her father describe it as...

Bram Stoker, Dracula (1.32)Oliver Optic (1.39)Victor Appleton (1.39)Edgar Rice Burroughs (1.39)Tarzan (1.39), (4.96)The Rover Boys (1.39), (4.44)Tom Swift (1.39), (1.68), (8.104)Merlin (1.39)Seckat...