To Kill A Mockingbird: Background information

Harper Lee• Born April 28, 1926• Youngest of four kids• 1957 submitted TKAM

manuscript• Had to spend 2 years

rewriting it• 1960 TKAM was published• 1966 named to National

Council of Arts by president Johnson

Setting: Where, when, & environment

• Maycomb, Alabama (fictional town)

• 1930s– Great Depression– Prejudice and legal Segregation– Ignorance

1930s Great Depression• Began when stock market

crashed in October, 1929• Businesses failed and

factories closed• What does this mean for

Americans?

• People out of work• Even wealthy people

suffered because of no production for sales

• Poor lost their homes and were forced to live off the land.

What else should we know?

• Racial prejudice and segregation are alive and prominent in the 1930s, as old ideas were slow to change.

What else should we know?

• The right to “Fair Trial” excluded blacks in the 1930s– Juries were male and white

• Social class separation in the rural south– Few wealthy in control the majority of the

population country folk, poor whites, and poor blacks

• Gender bias– Women not treated as equals– Women in stereotypical roles

Prejudice in the novel

• Race• Gender• Handicaps• Social class• Age • Religion

We will explore this theme and many others as we read To Kill a Mockingbird

“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up no peoples gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

Theme: Good vs. Evil