Analysis Of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird

Analysis of Harper Lee s To Kill a Mockingbird

To truly understand this literary work, using formalism and feminisms theories one must understand the strength and weaknesses of the methodologies to comprehend the value of each lens. While one lens identifies the irony and motives from the excerpt in contrast, the other lens inspects the racial conflict as well as females at the time of the Southern America.

The feminist views the main character to be Scout, a 10 year old girl who struggles to understand racism and her society s rules. Harper lee illustrates his stance towards gender roles which will be isolated in how he weakens the female gender and betrays them as cowards. The reader is influenced by the political environment the author has clearly created throughout the text. Feminists can clearly infer an absence of equilibrium between the male and female gender wit in the text. Moreover, social and feminine expectations are forced upon girls from a very young age.

On the other hand, understanding the text as a work of art via formalism leads to multiple meanings than what the text suggests. Although part one starts off vague - not giving much detail about the accident the text establishes the main idea for the audience in a way which suggests numerous directions the story may take. Contrary to the feminist lens, whereas its focuses on the negative stereotypes of the feminine attitudes formalism identifies that bravery here is evident in many situations.

Finally, the social injustice is felt throughout the text. Both approaches show the reader the strong inequality that is present in their society, which is felt most in Harper Lee s approach to the black community.

Works Cited

Harper Lee`s To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harold Bloom, Bloom`s Literary Criticism, 2010.