Disenfranchisement In To Kill A Mockingbird

The term disenfranchisement can be defined as dispossessing individuals or whole groups of their power, rights and privileges and deserting them in a state of powerlessness. This notion is profoundly explored and evinced in Harper Lee’s award winning novel- “ To Kill A Mockingbird”, published in 1960. “ To Kill A Mockingbird” is set in the fictitious rural town of Maycomb, Alabama, the United States in the 1930s, in an aeon of great economic and social turmoil. Sexism, racism and other prejudices was at its pinnacle point and Lee embeds these attitudes within the foundation of Maycomb’s society in order to genesis Maycomb as a town with rigid social hierarchy and quintessential traditions and attitudes of that epoch. We can capitalise Michael Foucault’s postulations of the manner in which space represented the degree …show more content…
The above quotation from the novel is a technique which Lee appropriated in order to display one aspect of disenfranchisement within Maycomb. The symbolism represented in the excerpt of the novel represents two dissimilar characters within the text- Boo( Arthur) Radley and Tom Robinson. Mockingbirds are quiet birds that replicate the songs of other birds and do no harm to others as evident - “they don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs…’(pg 100). Mockingbirds reciprocate songs of other birds therefore we identify mockingbirds through other birds. The citizens of Maycomb also only recognise Boo and Tom by the rumours about them. Both Boo and Tom have no ‘song’ or voice of their own, but rather are characterised by what society redeems them as. Similarly like mockingbirds both Boo and Tom are also quite citizens who do no harm to others. Lee exploits this symbolism in order to present to the audience one characteristic of the disfranchisement that exists within the structure of Maycomb 's