A* Essay To Kill A Mocking Bird: How Is Danger Presented In 1930`s America

To Kill a Mockingbird Part A: In 1930's America danger wasn't hard to come by in everyday life - whether it be financially such as in the Wall Street Crash or being afraid to step out of the door because of vicious clans and lynch mobs, it wasn't the safest place to be at the time of the great depression. Maycomb itself has had its fair share of dangerous encounters; Lee presents the shooting of Time Johnson as one of these. Danger is something that often comes gradually until a climax has emerged from the tight tension. The first sight of danger we can extract from this passage is that the paragraphs are all considerably small ; each paragraph a new step into the atmosphere of tension in the street at that very moment . Lee uses short sharp paragraphs, almost like the bullet used to kill the poor rabid dog, to stroked the reader at each step to draw them in further until the actual shot is fired and the dog "crumple[s]" onto the floor. The whole of the street are definitely sure that Tim Johnson is going to be a problem; hence Calpurnia tries to "block" the children from getting closer to the rabid animal. It's rather ironic how a black woman is protecting white children from the danger, when really in that time period the black community was engulfed deeply within uncertainty of their lives, danger in the form of a lynch mob, or even just abuse from the others in the state, it's really the black community who are in need of protection. The choice to go down the street that the animal had made was peril; not only does this help the reader realise a sense of danger and suspense regarding whether the dog chooses the path closer of further away but it actually makes the reader articulate the importance of choices, actually reflecting later in the play where Tom Robinson made the choice to say he felt sorry for Mayella which sealed his fate. Lee quite cleverly mirrors how danger can be brought on by us to ourselves. Our choices are the very things that depict our future, and what danger we get ourselves into. When events in our lives suddenly turn dramatic at a certain time, it's almost as if things pass in "slow" motion as the events flow out in front of us. Atticus slows to a "nauseating crawl" creating vivid imagery of how everything is almost frozen, every distinct detail moves at a sluggish speed - Lee emphasises the absolute shock the whole street seems to be engulfed in by dragging out the event allowing us to digest every detail. Atticus is just a "feeble" man according to the children this portrays really he isn't expecting to do very much at all yet when his glasses "crack" on impact we realise Lee has used this as symbolism to illustrate how the exterior of the "feeble" Atticus we have come accustomed to has broken. He has taken off his very identity itself and destroyed the mould of the regular person he is. Now this would be incredibly distressing to the children as they almost "faint" in fact this reflects upon how the children realise that something dangerous is occurring as Atticus isn't even himself, he has to become someone they never thought he could become in order to save the community from the rabid animal. The Identity of Maycomb and outer southern counties weren't really anything to be proud of at that time, danger roamed the streets ready to prey upon victims, and everything appeared to be tainted with some form or racism or injustice. It was a very difficult time to be brought up in and Harper Lee reveals this to us through the incidents that occur throughout the book. Part B: It's clear to see time has progressed society in America and the rest of the world significantly. Of course society still has and will always have flaws that will prevent the notion of ideology within humanity - even today we experience injustice, prejudice and unfairness in the media towards many different types of people for a variety of reasons. Alabama 1930; a place and era tainted completely by injustice. According to Thomas Jefferson, and indeed Atticus Finch - "All men are created equal" and in theory this was true, in fact on paper it was even true but in practice this couldn't be further from the truth. At the time the black community couldn't even sit on the bus without having to give up their seat for a white passenger, they couldn't go the same school or even the same church to worship the same God. Harper Lee uses Atticus as a tool to deliver a message to the "ignorant" jury that day. Atticus is in fact a non-conformist; he doesn't follow the despicable trend of society and is in fact a person with his own opinions. Atticus is a symbolism of a mockingbird but not in the way that he follows the crowd, "mocking" their endless tunes of racism, injustice and prejudice but in a form where all he ever does is sing for people, utterly harmless. It's quite easy to make an "assumption" about someone whereby people don't adhere to the fact that all humans are "created equal" and that all of humanity is the same and this is the root of injustice. Synonymous to the nut grass weed; until the root of injustice and racism, being false assumptions and hypocrisy, are destroyed completely we as a race will be completely flawed by a huge issue that could lead to devastation in the masses, just destroying the surface of the problem will achieve nothing in its entirety. But what we really learn from Atticus is that until someone takes that first "baby step" we will never accomplish anything, Lee reveals through Atticus that America was filled by ridiculous amounts of injustice but the only way to cure it is by taking one single "step" forwards whenever you can, because the only way of curing the "illness" of unfairness and injustice is to take it slowly rather than try and fight it with a one man army all at once. The sad actuality is that Mayella did nothing wrong to begin with but society led her to cause the death of an innocent hand leaving her hands stained "red" with Tom Robinsons blood. For if it wasn't for the conformity of society where it was "wrong to tempt a Negro." None of this would have occurred in the first place. We learn a life lesson here from Lee that society is a powerful weapon that can be wrongly used to strip people of their ability to think freely and can distort their conscience. It's because of this that injustice was the real ruler of the 1930's, because of society the majority of people thought "all Negros were basically immoral beings" when in absoluteness, Tom Robinson was just a man but like any other black man, woman and child, he was subjected to cruelty because of the sick and twisted pattern subjected by a very flawed society indeed.