Southern Literary Messenger

To Kill a MockingBird is one of the best novels ever written, but why? To Kill a Mockingbird ,a novel by Harper Lee, is one of the most well known books in the world. It set in a small southern town in Alabama during the Great Depression. It shows how bad of a problem racism was during that time. Narrated by a little girl name Scout, from her point of view, years after the story actually happened. The story has a poor yet cruel white family, a black man accused of rapeing a young white women, a…

it. For example, there is traditional gothic, weird fiction, southern gothic, contemporary gothic, etc. Each one of these partial genres has different characteristics which vary from story to story. However, some stories which fall into a specific genre, also have many characteristics from other genres. For example, a contemporary gothic literature work may be in written in a sense that seems like traditional gothic literature or southern gothic. In the contemporary gothic excerpts “The Falls,”…

The idea of transcending into or through a new context has applied, and still does, at a profoundly deep level to the entire existence, past and future of humanity. It is an important concept to take into account for the future. Transitioning into a new context can have serious repercussions, whether they be positive or negative. If someone is to move into a new situation, their personal attitude and opinions must change to adapt to the circumstance. A change in these values may subsequently…

A mockingbird is a symbol of innocence, purity, and goodness. Arthur ‘Boo’ Radley is portrayed as one if many mockingbirds in this novel. In ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, Harper Lee uses symbolism, irony, and metaphor to characterize Boo Radley as misunderstood and innocent. Harper Lee metaphorically compares Boo Radley to a monster through Jem’s over exaggerated description of Boo at the beginning of the novel. Jem describes Boo as “about six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks” (page…

As kids grow, they go through events that mature them over time. In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird there are two protagonists named Scout and Jem. The book starts off with the kids being interested in letting Boo Radley come out of the house, Boo Arthur Radley is a recluse who stays inside and he's rumored to have stabbed his dad in the leg with some scissors, this guy gives gifts to the kids through a tree and contributes to their childhood because of it. The rumors are what condemns Boo’s…

All humans are apt to become prejudiced, and parents play a major role in prejudice acquisition to their children; those children are inclined to look up to their parents. However, Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird portrays a more affirmative image for the development of children; Atticus, Scout’s father and mentor, gives her lessons to stay unprejudiced and make good decisions. Scout actualizes those lessons frequently in the future. She encounters various conflicts which allow her to grow…

You can never Judge a book by it’s cover, and that goes for people too, no matter what they do or say. Until you take the time to understand what’s going on in one's life, you don’t have the entitlement to judge them by their actions, and you don’t know what might be going on in their story. To kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a story about a small town called Maycomb, narrated by a young girl nicknamed Scout. Maycomb is a poor one street town, that consists of racially split, judgemental…

A vast majority of the population has felt functionally invisible at some point in their life. Being functionally invisible can make a person feel unimportant, unheard, and not cared about. Sometimes, in a family discussion, people feel as though their opinion is not recognized. Another situation where somebody feels functionally invisible is in the book, The Schwa was Here, where Old Man Crawley, Antsy, and Lexie feel functionally invisible. Some characters, such as Mr. Crawley, think that…

To kill a Mockingbird can cause courage when you do something or helping someone in need that almost cause your life. There are three characters that really shows courage, they’re Scout, Jem, and Boo. They can show many different way that can shows courage to help and protect. They’ve know that can do something about this story that just only about courage from To kill a mockingbird. Jem shows courage by standing up to Atticus with all of guys who trying to kill Tom Robinson. He tried to…

In the book Year Of No Rain by Alice Mead, Stephen and Wol have different points of view on planing on their futures. On page 19 Stephen was very surprised on how Wol told him what he wanted to leave a family before he went to battle because he said he wanted to get engaged and have a family. On the other hand Stephen was very surprised and doesn’t think about his own future. They are different because one is thinking about his future family before he goes and could lose his life, and Stephen is…