Same, Same, But Different (Rob Lycett)

Background Information - to Kill A Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird – Plot Summary

To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee. The book was published in 1960, in the United States by J. B. Lippincott & Co. To Kill a Mockingbird is a Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece of modern literature and was voted the most loved book of the last sixty years by The Times readers in October 2009. It has been translated into more the forty languages and has sold over thirty million copies worldwide.

The story takes place during the Great Depression from the years 1933-35, so three years. It was set in a fiction town (tired old town) of Maycomb, Alabama, the seat of Maycomb County. The story focuses on six-year-old Jean Louise Finch (Scout). She lives with her older brother, Jem, and their widowed father, Atticus, who was a middle-aged lawyer. Judge Taylor appoints Atticus to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who has been accused of raping a young white woman, Mayella Ewell. Atticus agrees to defend Tom to his best of his ability. Other children in the neighbourhood taunt Jem and Scout saying that their father is a “nigger-lover”. Atticus is then faced by a group of men that intend to lynch Tom for what he has done, apparently.

Atticus establishes that the accusers, Mayella and her father, Bob Ewell, the town drunk, are lying. It also becomes clear the Mayella made sexual advances on Tom, when her father caught her and beat her. Despite Tom’s innocence, the jury convict him. Jem’s faith in justice becomes badly shaken, as is Atticus’, when the hapless Tom is shot and killed while trying to escape from prison.

Bob Ewell vows revenge, spitting in Atticus’ face, and also trying to break into the judge’s house, and menacing Tom Robinson’s widow. Not only that, but he also attacks the defenceless Jem and Scout while they walk home on a dark night after the schools Halloween pageant. Jem’s arm was broken, but coming to their rescue was a mysterious man who carried Jem home, Scout realizes that it was Boo Radley.

Sheriff Tate arrives and discovers that Bob Ewell has dies during the fight. The Sheriff argues with Atticus about the prudence and ethics of charging Jem or Boo for the death of Bob. Atticus eventually accepts the story from the Sheriff that Bob Ewell fell onto his own knife. Boo asks Scout to walk him home, and when she says goodbye to him he disappears again. While standing on the Radley porch, Scout imagines life from Boo’s perspective, and regrets that they had never repaid him for the gifts he had given them.

Gender Roles

In the 1960s, deep cultural changes were altering the role of women in American society. More females than ever were entering the paid workforce, and this increased the dissatisfaction among women regarding huge gender disparities in pay and advancement and sexual harassment at the workplace. One of the most profound changes was happening in the bedroom. By the end of the Sixties, more than 80 percent of wives of childbearing age were using contraception after the federal government in 1960 approved a birth control pill. This freed many women from unwanted pregnancy and gave them many more choices, and freedom, in their personal lives.

Gradually, Americans came to accept some of the basic goals of the Sixties feminists: equal pay for equal work, an end to domestic violence, curtailment of severe limits on women in managerial jobs, an end to sexual harassment, and sharing of responsibility for housework and child rearing.

1960’s Civil Rights Movement

Nearly 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans in Southern states still inhabited a starkly unequal world of disenfranchisement, segregation and various forms of oppression, including race-inspired violence.

Background

Because large segments of the populace–particularly African-Americans, women, and men without property–have not always been accorded full citizenship rights in the American Republic, civil rights movements, or “freedom struggles,” have been a frequent feature of the nation’s history. In particular, movements to obtain civil rights for black Americans have had special historical significance. Such movements have not only secured citizenship rights for blacks but have also redefined prevailing conceptions of the nature of civil rights and the role of government in protecting these rights. The most important achievements of African-American civil rights movements have been the post-Civil War constitutional amendments that abolished slavery and established the citizenship status of blacks and the judicial decisions and legislation based on these amendments, notably the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision of 1954, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Moreover, these legal changes greatly affected the opportunities available to women, nonblack minorities, disabled individuals, and other victims of discrimination.

Class

Scholars argue that Lee's approach to class and race was more complex "than ascribing racial prejudice primarily to 'poor white trash' ... Lee demonstrates how issues of gender and class intensify prejudice, silence the voices that might challenge the existing order, and greatly complicate many Americans' conception of the causes of racism and segregation."^[57] Lee's use of the middle-class narrative voice is a literary device that allows an intimacy with the reader, regardless of class or cultural background, and fosters a sense of nostalgia. Sharing Scout and Jem's perspective, the reader is allowed to engage in relationships with the conservative antebellum Mrs. Dubose; the lower-class Ewells, and the Cunningham’s who are equally poor but behave in vastly different ways; the wealthy but ostracized Mr. Dolphus Raymond; and Calpurnia and other members of the black community.

Racial Injustice

The theme of racial injustice appears symbolically in the novel as well. For example, Atticus must shoot a rabid dog, even though it is not his job to do so. Carolyn Jones argues that the dog represents prejudice within the town of Maycomb, and Atticus, who waits on a deserted street to shoot the dog, must fight against the town's racism without help from other white citizens. He is also alone when he faces a group intending to lynch Tom Robinson and once more in the courthouse during Tom's trial. Lee even uses dreamlike imagery from the mad dog incident to describe some of the courtroom scenes. Jones writes, “the real mad dog in Maycomb is the racism that denies the humanity of Tom Robinson .... When Atticus makes his summation to the jury, he literally bares himself to the jury's and the town's anger."

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Darryl McCray, or ‘Cornbread’, his street name, is one of the unsung pioneers of the Hip-Hop culture. He started daubing his name on the streets of Philadelphia back in 1967. ‘I first started writing graffiti in the halls of a juvenile institution when I was 10 years old’. Cornbread was one of the first graffiti artist to be known, but from this he didn’t know what he had started and this culture would spread to every corner of the world. When he got out, he met a girl called Cynthia, who he uses to like a lot. He first started writing ‘Cornbread loves Cynthia’ on walls all over the neighborhood. She just knew him as Darryl.

Cornbread - One of the pioneers of the Hip-Hop Culture.

This is a piece of work by Cornbread. He was one of the first ever graffiti artist to spray on the streets. I began this back in 1967, on the streets of Philadelphia.

Banksy's 'No Future' Graffiti work.

This is a piece of amazing work by Banksy. When you first look at this when it makes you think about what it means. You can see the girl is sad, so this must be in the meaning. I think that this work is about poorer countries that are at war. This girl is stuck in the middle of it all, and has no future.

My writing re-written form the notes I received

Cornbread, or his real name Darryl McCray, is one of the unsung pioneers of the Hip-Hop culture. ‘I first started writing graffiti in the halls of a juvenile institution when I was 10 years old’. The streets of Philadelphia were the first days where he started daubing his names on walls back in 1967. The culture that he started began to spread across to every corner of the world, however, he did not know what he had started. When he got out, he met a girl called Cynthia, who he uses to like a lot. He first started writing ‘Cornbread loves Cynthia’ on walls all over the neighborhood. She just knew him as Darryl.

When I got my work back, I had a few notes on it; It was good information about the artist that I had written about, was concise, was engaging and was very too the point. I was happy with these notes back from my peer. However, I had a few improvements to make and one was to word it differently and see if it would work better. So above is the new paragraph that I have written and I am much happier with this version.