2. Done By: Amany Jouda Amany Jouda Walla Abdel-Rahman Walla Abdel-Rahman Submitted To: Dr. Ayman El-Hallaq 20320081972 20420081489

3.  Key literary facts  Author  Title  Background Information  Characters & Plot structure  Setting  Themes  Symbols

4.  Author: Harper Lee  Type of work: Novel  Genre: Coming-of-age story; social drama; courtroom drama; Southern drama  Narrator: Scout narrates the story herself, looking back in retrospect an unspecified number of years after the events of the novel take place.  Tone: Childlike, nostalgic; as the novel progresses, increasingly dark, and critical of society

5.  An American novelist  Born in 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama, US  Father was prominent lawyer  Studied law at the University of Alabama  The author of one novel, but it was a novel that had an extraordinary impact on American society: “To Kill a Mockingbird”

6.  Her Writings: 1. “To Kill a Mockingbird”, her only novel 2. “Love--In Other Words”, a short essay 3. “Christmas to Me”, an essay 4. “When Children Discover America”, an essay 5. “Romance and High Adventure”, a paper 6. “Open Letter to Oprah Winfrey”

7.  Despite being Lee's only published book, TKMB led to her being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom of the United States for her contribution to literature by President George W. Bush at the White House in 2007.

8.  The title of To Kill a Mockingbird refers to the local belief, introduced early in the novel and referred to again later, that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird. Harper Lee is subtly implying that the townspeople are responsible for killing Tom Robinson, and that doing so was not only unjust and immoral, but sinful.

9. Mockingbird: an American bird that copies the songs of other birds.

10.  First person  Story is told by Scout, a six-year-old girl  Harper Lee is actually a woman; Scout represents the author as a little girl although the story is not strictly autobiographical

11.  The story’s narrator  Although now an adult, Scout looks back at her childhood and tells of the momentous events and influential people of those years.  Scout is six when the story begins.

12.  Although the novel wasn't supposed to be an autobiography, the time period and some events seem to match the novel.  Harper Lee seems to act a lot like the character in her novel Scout.  TKMB is semi-autobiographical for a number of reasons: 1. Lee grew up in Alabama 2. Father was prominent lawyer 3. In the 1930's Harper Lee would be around the age of five and Scout was about the same age.

13. TKMB includes several references to historical events. Understanding the times helps to understand the novel

14.  Hitler, chancellor of Germany, believes that Jews, African Americans, and other races are inferior to Anglo-Saxons.

15.  No white female nurses in hospitals that treat black men  No interracial marriages  Separate waiting rooms for whites and blacks  Segregated theatres

16.  Separate schools

17.  Segregated water fountains  A cafe near the tobacco market. (Signs: Separate doors for "White" and for "Colored.“) North Carolina, 1940

18.  Maycomb, Alabama (fictional city)  1933-1935

20.  TKMB is a novel about growing up under extraordinary circumstances in the 1930s in the Southern United States. The story covers a span of three years, during which the main characters undergo significant changes.  TKMB deals with the issues of racism that were observed by the author as a child in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama.  The novel tells the story of Atticus Finch, a lawyer in a small southern town whose family is ostracized when he defends a black man accused of raping a white woman.

21. Mayella Ewell Atticus Finch Scout (Jean Louise) Finch Boo Radley Bob Ewell Tom Robinson kills vows revenge on Atticus Father Jem Finch older brother younger sister defends Tom in court accuses him of rape Mayella Ewell depends on his defense and protection saves from Bob’s attack breaks Jem’s arm attempts to kill escorts home after saving Jem’s life his daughter

23.  Good vs. Evil  Moral Education  Social Inequality  Prejudice  Fear of the Unknown  Bravery  Trust  Truth  Femininity

24.  Moral reasoning by Atticus Finch  Acts of “Boo” Radley  Acts of the Ewell family: deception, harassment, lies and violence

25.  The novel approaches this question by dramatizing Scout and Jem’s transition from a perspective of childhood innocence, in which they assume that people are good because they have never seen evil, to a more adult perspective, in which they have confronted evil and must incorporate it into their understanding of the world.  people such as Tom Robinson and Boo Radley are not prepared for the evil that they encounter, and, as a result, they are destroyed.

26.  Even Jem is victimized to an extent by his discovery of the evil of racism during and after the trial.  Atticus Finch, who is virtually unique in the novel in that he has experienced and understood evil without losing his faith in the human capacity for goodness.  Scout at last sees Boo Radley as a human being. Her newfound ability to view the world from his perspective ensures that she will not become jaded as she loses her innocence.

27.  The treatment of Tom Robinson  Division between blacks and whites during time period  Treatment of whites who defend blacks

28.  The education of children is necessarily involved in the development of all of the novel’s themes—how they are taught to move from innocence to adulthood.  Scout's real education occurs outside of school.  This theme is explored most powerfully through the relationship between Atticus and his children, as he devotes himself to instilling a social conscience in Jem and Scout.

29.  The novel’s conclusion about education is that the most important lessons are those of sympathy and understanding, and that a sympathetic, understanding approach is the best way to teach these lessons. In this way, Atticus’s ability to put himself in his children’s shoes makes him an excellent teacher, while Miss Caroline’s rigid commitment to the educational techniques that she learned in college makes her ineffective and even dangerous.

30.  Scout's world is a safe place — her greatest fears are largely products of her own imagination. So even though she is terrified to pass by the Radley house, she takes the gum she finds in their tree.  As Scout moves from innocence to maturity — part of a coming-of-age story — she will learn that she can't always trust those things that appear safe.

31.  Scout & Jem face harsh criticism from their peers and they’re called “nigger lovers” because Atticus, their father, chooses to defend an innocent man.  Ewell Family is a victim of social prjudice. Everyone assumes that they’re called “no good”.

32.  Mockingbirds  Boo Radley

33.  The title of To Kill a Mockingbird has very little literal connection to the plot, but it carries a great deal of symbolic weight in the book.  In this story of innocents destroyed by evil, the “mockingbird” comes to represent the idea of innocence. It symbolizes everything that is Good and Harmless in this world. Thus, to kill a mockingbird is to destroy innocence..

34. Two characters in the novel can be identified as mockingbirds: Tom Robinson & Boo Radley— innocents who have been injured or destroyed through contact with evil.

35.  As the novel progresses, the children’s changing attitude toward Boo Radley is an important measurement of their development from innocence toward a grown-up moral perspective. At the beginning of the book, Boo is a source of childhood superstition. As he leaves Jem and Scout presents and mends Jem’s pants, he gradually becomes increasingly and intriguingly real to them.

36.  At the end of the novel, he becomes fully human to Scout. Boo, an intelligent child ruined by a cruel father, is one of the book’s most important mockingbirds; he is also an important symbol of the good that exists within people. Despite the pain that Boo has suffered, the purity of his heart rules his interaction with the children. In saving Jem and Scout from Bob Ewell, Boo proves the ultimate symbol of good.

37. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, they don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."