Robert Mulligan’s 1962 film adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird”, is an enlightening tale that delves deep into the pre- civil rights era of southern America. The year is 1933, and an African-American man, Tom Robinson, is put on trial for the rape of neighboring white woman, Mayella Ewell, by the folks of a quant Alabamian town, in Maycomb County. The picture of American history illustrated by this film is that of an ignorant and impoverished majority in a bleak period of our nation. While one man, Atticus Finch, counsel for the accused, Tom Robinson, stands a cut above the rest of the townspeople who seem to be nothing more than a prejudice lot. This film accurately portrays an era clouded by racism and inequality through outdated slanderous terminology, segregation of whites and blacks, and the underrepresented jury.
The use of the “N word” throughout the film is a predominate symbol illuminating the theme of ignorance and backwards thinking which had always existed in the south, but were at the time of its release, being made out to be a relevant issue. In the scene where Atticus and his motherless children, Scout and Jem, drive out to country to update the defendant’s wife, Helen, about her husband’s case; Bob Ewell drunkenly wobbles over to the Robinson house and insinuates that Atticus is a “nigger lover”. In a …show more content…
Coincidently, it was not until the 1935 case of Norris v. Alabama that blacks could no longer be systemically banned from serving on a jury. Also, the lack of women in the jury another historical accuracy, for women were not allowed to serve on juries in all fifty states until 1973. The historical significance of this detail that may have been overlooked serves as a window into the world of the white man, resulting in an unsure and anxiety ridden time for a colored man on trial by a jury of his
The use of the “N word” throughout the film is a predominate symbol illuminating the theme of ignorance and backwards thinking which had always existed in the south, but were at the time of its release, being made out to be a relevant issue. In the scene where Atticus and his motherless children, Scout and Jem, drive out to country to update the defendant’s wife, Helen, about her husband’s case; Bob Ewell drunkenly wobbles over to the Robinson house and insinuates that Atticus is a “nigger lover”. In a …show more content…
Coincidently, it was not until the 1935 case of Norris v. Alabama that blacks could no longer be systemically banned from serving on a jury. Also, the lack of women in the jury another historical accuracy, for women were not allowed to serve on juries in all fifty states until 1973. The historical significance of this detail that may have been overlooked serves as a window into the world of the white man, resulting in an unsure and anxiety ridden time for a colored man on trial by a jury of his