To Kill a Mockingbird
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
In 1931, nine black teenage boys were accused of rape by two white girls. The trials of the boys lasted six years, with convictions, reversals, and numerous retrials. These trials were given the name The Scottsboro Trials, made national headlines, and drastically intensified the debate about race and racism in America. Ultimately, after six years of trials in which the boys were kept in jail, and despite the fact that one of the girls ultimately changed her testimony and claimed that no rape had actually occurred, five of the nine were convicted of rape.
RELATED LITERARY WORKS
To Kill a Mockingbird is set in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, and while it is the story of Scout's growing up it is also a story of the racially charged atmosphere of the town in the years of the Great Depression.
To Kill a Mockingbird therefore falls into that particular subset of American literature called Southern literature, since it deals both explicitly and implicitly with themes and issues that were uniquely Southern.
To Kill a Mockingbird also shares many connections with what is perhaps the most important book written by an American Southerner: Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.
Both novels have a trouble-making child as their protagonist and narrator, and both novels chart the growth of those narrators as their adventurers force them to see the unfairness and brutality of their community and society, particularly in regard to the treatment of blacks.
KEY FACTS
Full Title: To Kill a Mockingbird
When Written: 1950-1960
Where Written: New York City and Monroeville, Alabama
When Published: 1960
Literary Period: Modernism
Genre: Coming-of-age novel (bildungsroman); social novel
Setting: The fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Great Depression
Climax: The trial of Tom Robinson, or when Bob Ewell attacks Scout and Jem.
Antagonist: Bob Ewell
Point of View: First person; Scout is looking back at the events of the novel from some unspecified future time.
In 1931, nine black teenage boys were accused of rape by two white girls. The trials of the boys lasted six years, with convictions, reversals, and numerous retrials. These trials were given the name The Scottsboro Trials, made national headlines, and drastically intensified the debate about race and racism in America. Ultimately, after six years of trials in which the boys were kept in jail, and despite the fact that one of the girls ultimately changed her testimony and claimed that no rape had actually occurred, five of the nine were convicted of rape.
RELATED LITERARY WORKS
To Kill a Mockingbird is set in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, and while it is the story of Scout's growing up it is also a story of the racially charged atmosphere of the town in the years of the Great Depression.
To Kill a Mockingbird therefore falls into that particular subset of American literature called Southern literature, since it deals both explicitly and implicitly with themes and issues that were uniquely Southern.
To Kill a Mockingbird also shares many connections with what is perhaps the most important book written by an American Southerner: Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.
Both novels have a trouble-making child as their protagonist and narrator, and both novels chart the growth of those narrators as their adventurers force them to see the unfairness and brutality of their community and society, particularly in regard to the treatment of blacks.
KEY FACTS
Full Title: To Kill a Mockingbird
When Written: 1950-1960
Where Written: New York City and Monroeville, Alabama
When Published: 1960
Literary Period: Modernism
Genre: Coming-of-age novel (bildungsroman); social novel
Setting: The fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Great Depression
Climax: The trial of Tom Robinson, or when Bob Ewell attacks Scout and Jem.
Antagonist: Bob Ewell
Point of View: First person; Scout is looking back at the events of the novel from some unspecified future time.