I Will Travel Through the Land -
With my retinue of guards,
I will study the eyes of human suffering,
I will see what no one has seen -
But will I be able to describe it?
Will I cry how we are able to do this -
Walk on partings as on water?
How we begin to look like our husbands -
Our eyes, foreheads, the corners of our mouths.
How we remember them - down to each last vein of their skins-
They who have been wrenched away from us for years,
How we write to them: "Never mind,
You and I are one and the same,
Can't be taken apart!"
And, forged in land,
"Forever" sounds in answer -
That most ancient of words
Behind which, without shadow, is the light.
I will trudge with the convoy,
And I will remember everything -
By heart! -they won't be able to take it from me! -
how we breathe outside the law!
What we live by -
Until the morrow.
Thursday, 14 July 2011
To kill a Mockingbird - context and setting
Setting in Place
To Kill a Mockingbird is set in a small town in Alabama in the Southern States of America. Although Maycomb is a fictitious town, based on Harper Lee's home town of Monroeville, real places like Montgomery are referred to in the novel. In order to understand how the atmosphere of the time affected both Harper Lee and the creation of her characters, it is necessary to consider the context and belief systems of both the time in which it was written (late 1950s) and the era in which it is set. (1933-5)
Setting in Time
Context
The American Civil War of 1861-1865
Although the novel is set seventy years after the Civil War, attitudes and resentments and memories of violence were still prominent.
*The Southern States had gone to War with the North, which was more progressive than the South and trying to abolish slavery. African slaves, imported in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were a vital part of the South's economy, particularly as a source of labour in the cotton-growing plantations.
*The Northern States won and the United States of America was established. Slaves were made free men. However, there was still much
resentment by Whites in the South, who largely viewed Blacks as ill-educated, with low morals, hardly human at all. Blacks and Whites
remained segregated in all aspects of life until the second half of the twentieth century.
*A particularly violent group of Whites formed the Ku Klux Klan in 1867. Members wore long white cloaks and hoods so they could not be
easily recognised. They persecuted and murdered Blacks and Catholics.
1933-1935
These years were relatively peaceful, though it was a time of severe economic depression.
*The Wall Street Crash of 1929 caused many shares suddenly to become worthless and poverty swept the country. The farming states of
the South were badly hit.
*President Roosevelt made substantial attempts at economy recovery. After the National Recovery Act, Roosevelt told the people "they had
nothing to fear but fear itself". However, these strategies took time to lift the depression.
*As the United States had many internal problems, they were not very concerned or involved with European affairs. Many Americans were so
caught up with their own troubles that they were not even aware of what was going on in the rest of the country, let alone the rest of the
world.
Late 1950s and the Southern American writing
At the time Harper Lee was writing To Kill a Mockingbird the social climate would have been
uppermost in her thought.
*Blacks, who had fought for their country during the Second World War, were starting to demand more civil rights, for instance their right to vote and desegregate. The Blacks' Civil Rights Movement took on a new vigour. Alabama was an important centre in the movement.
*This led to a novel which is a mixture of nostalgia, criticism and perhaps guilt- typical of White Southern American writers of the time who
had gained some perspective on the ways of the isolated communities in which they grew up.
Maycomb is a microcosm of American society in the 1930s. It is only concerned with its own problems (of poverty and unemployment) but it
is on the eve of major change, both from within and from outside its world. Its geographical position and historical background have shaped
its inhabitants- we will see this as we focus on the characters and neighbourhoods of the Maycomb setting. The novel is about a man,
Atticus Finch, trying to jolt his society out of this isolationist mentality and towards recognising that Blacks are humans, who deserve the same rights as Whites.
To Kill a Mockingbird is set in a small town in Alabama in the Southern States of America. Although Maycomb is a fictitious town, based on Harper Lee's home town of Monroeville, real places like Montgomery are referred to in the novel. In order to understand how the atmosphere of the time affected both Harper Lee and the creation of her characters, it is necessary to consider the context and belief systems of both the time in which it was written (late 1950s) and the era in which it is set. (1933-5)
Setting in Time
Context
The American Civil War of 1861-1865
Although the novel is set seventy years after the Civil War, attitudes and resentments and memories of violence were still prominent.
*The Southern States had gone to War with the North, which was more progressive than the South and trying to abolish slavery. African slaves, imported in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were a vital part of the South's economy, particularly as a source of labour in the cotton-growing plantations.
*The Northern States won and the United States of America was established. Slaves were made free men. However, there was still much
resentment by Whites in the South, who largely viewed Blacks as ill-educated, with low morals, hardly human at all. Blacks and Whites
remained segregated in all aspects of life until the second half of the twentieth century.
*A particularly violent group of Whites formed the Ku Klux Klan in 1867. Members wore long white cloaks and hoods so they could not be
easily recognised. They persecuted and murdered Blacks and Catholics.
1933-1935
These years were relatively peaceful, though it was a time of severe economic depression.
*The Wall Street Crash of 1929 caused many shares suddenly to become worthless and poverty swept the country. The farming states of
the South were badly hit.
*President Roosevelt made substantial attempts at economy recovery. After the National Recovery Act, Roosevelt told the people "they had
nothing to fear but fear itself". However, these strategies took time to lift the depression.
*As the United States had many internal problems, they were not very concerned or involved with European affairs. Many Americans were so
caught up with their own troubles that they were not even aware of what was going on in the rest of the country, let alone the rest of the
world.
Late 1950s and the Southern American writing
At the time Harper Lee was writing To Kill a Mockingbird the social climate would have been
uppermost in her thought.
*Blacks, who had fought for their country during the Second World War, were starting to demand more civil rights, for instance their right to vote and desegregate. The Blacks' Civil Rights Movement took on a new vigour. Alabama was an important centre in the movement.
*This led to a novel which is a mixture of nostalgia, criticism and perhaps guilt- typical of White Southern American writers of the time who
had gained some perspective on the ways of the isolated communities in which they grew up.
Maycomb is a microcosm of American society in the 1930s. It is only concerned with its own problems (of poverty and unemployment) but it
is on the eve of major change, both from within and from outside its world. Its geographical position and historical background have shaped
its inhabitants- we will see this as we focus on the characters and neighbourhoods of the Maycomb setting. The novel is about a man,
Atticus Finch, trying to jolt his society out of this isolationist mentality and towards recognising that Blacks are humans, who deserve the same rights as Whites.
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