Name _____________________________

To Kill a Mockingbird Literary Analysis

Directions: To prepare for writing a literary analysis on To Kill a Mockingbird you will first
need to select your topic and begin developing your plan for the essay. Please carefully read the
options below and select a prompt to write on.

Assume your reader is familiar with To Kill a Mockingbird. Your job is to draw your
readers attention to something that is not surface level. Prove something to your reader
with textual evidence that he or she may not have realized.

Put a star next to your choice below.

Co-existence of good and evil

What values/ beliefs does Atticus Finch have as a parent? Describe the values he seeks to
instill in his children through the lessons he teaches Jem and Scout directly and those he
teaches by his example. Consider how he is able to do this despite the community/time
period they live in.
Courage is required in order to bring about change, whether it is personal or social. Is
Atticus the hero of the story, despite not overcoming the odds? Discuss how his courage
brings about change in the novel. Is there another courageous hero?
Atticus is one of the least prejudice characters in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird because
he has the ability to empathize. Empathy is the ability to share in or understand another
persons emotions or feelings. How does To Kill a Mockingbird explore the importance of
being empathetic?

Social Inequality, Discrimination and Prejudice

What are the most significant sources of tension (i.e. suspicion, mistrust, class prejudice,
racial prejudice, snobbery, animosity, hatred) between various characters in the novel?
How are certain characters affected or impacted by these tensions?
What does this novel have to teach us about the problem of human inequality and
the divisions within human society? You could address divisions in race, class, or gender
expectations in the novel (in Maycomb). What advantages and disadvantages do some
characters have?
Focus on characters who are seen as outsiders in the story. What are these characters
roles in the story, why are outsiders? Is there something that unites each of these
characters? You may choose to focus on characters such as Boo Radley, Tom Robinson,
 Name _____________________________

Calpurnia and/or other African American Characters, Bob Ewell, Mayella Ewell, Burris
Ewell, Mr. Cunningham, Walter Cunningham, Dill Harris, Dolphus Raymond.

Moral education/coming of age and loss of innocence

Which character in the novel changes or grows the most significantly throughout the
novel? How does the characters morals develop throughout the novel?
What events in the story shared the most significant life-lessons? How did they contribute
to Scout, Jem, or Dills coming-of-age in Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930s and/or the loss
of innocence of these characters in the novel. You may pick one or more of these young
people to write about and you may want to mention other children in the story as well
such as Walter Cunningham, Little Chuck Little, Burris Ewell, Cecil Jacobs and Francis
Hancock.
 Name _____________________________

To Kill a Mockingbird Literary Analysis Planning

Directions: The work you do here will help you develop a more definite and focused
claim/thesis for your essay. Your claim/thesis should be specificit should cover only what you
will discuss in your paper and should be supported with specific evidence. It should present an
argument that you stand behind and are able to elaborate on and explain in detail.

Step One: Write your final topic below

_____________________________________________________________________________,

THREE key things about this topic that will serve as the (at least) three main points in my essay

1)

2)

3)

Step Two: Examples (from the text) of the THREE key things listed above. . .

1)

2)
 Name _____________________________

3)

Step Three: After brainstorming, what do these three observations have in common? How could
you turn these observations into an argument that supports a claim?

Step Four: Creating a draft of your claim

Develop a claim for your essay and write it below.

Remember, your claim/thesis should be specificit should cover only what you will
discuss in your paper and should be supported with specific evidence.
It should present an argument that you stand behind and are able to elaborate on and
explain in detail.
Assume your reader is familiar with To Kill a Mockingbird. Your job is to draw your
readers attention to something that is not surface level.
Prove something to your reader with textual evidence that he or she may not have
realized. So, with that in mind, what are you going to prove in your literary analysis?

______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________

A stronger claim... A weaker claim...

creates an argument / is debatable
is something some people may not have
considered
captures the purpose for writing the paper
utilizes strong diction (word choice)
has the word I in it (ex. I believe that Fitzgerald)
tells what the paper will prove (ex. In this paper, I
will)
is something everyone agrees with
restates something we already spent significant
time in class covering
 Name _____________________________

Introduction

Your last pre-writing step is to actually get started writing! Put together your claim and begin
writing your introduction. The writing you do now will prepare you for your final literary
analysis.

Reminders for your introduction;

1 complete paragraph

PURPOSE: To set up and state ones claim

Youre arguing about a literary work - identify the novels title and author and makes
some general comment about the overall significance of the novel.
Make your introductory paragraph interesting. How can you draw your readers in?
What background information, if any, do we need to know in order to understand your
claim? Provide a general overview of the novels plot and subject matter and the principal
characters.

Be sure to narrow the focus so as to establish the range and scope of your essay.

Claim At the end of your first paragraph, include a claim that specifically outlines and
clarifies the argument you are addressing/point you are making.

Use the space provided below to write a draft of your introduction.

______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
 Name _____________________________

______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________

At the novels end, Scout says of Boo Radley, neighbors give in return. We never put
back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad
(Chapter 31). Is Scout right, that they gave nothing in return? Does this comment come
from the adult-Scout narrator or the child-Scout narrator?

Body of Paper

Be sure to include at least three (3) developmental paragraphs each one of which provides
evidence examples illustrations (taken from various scenes in the novel) of the life-
lessons or sources of tension or dimensions of inequality you have outlined in your thesis. Each
developmental paragraph must include at least one or two relevant quotations followed
by commentary and analysis.

Remember to begin each developmental paragraph with A.) a topic sentence that identifies the
example or evidence that is relevant to your thesis. Next, B.) set the scene sufficiently i.e.
explain what is happening in the story and which characters are involved before introducing a
particular quotation. Next, C.) quote in a concise manner any description and/or dialogue that
you find especially important or illuminating. For each quotation or paraphrase of a scene, D.)
provide relevant commentary and analysis i.e. explain to your readers why each example or
bit of evidence is significant.

Conclusion

Use your conclusion to make editorial comments (for or again) the novels overall merits and
its depiction of the problems and issues mentioned in your essay. You may also use the
 Name _____________________________

conclusion to comment on how the lessons of the novel relate to your own personal
experience of related subjects.

Thesis statements

Innocence and Experience Difficult Lessons of Youth

The three main children characters react in different ways to the trial of Tom Robinson and
take from it different lessons about the world; Dill who identifies strongly with Tom responds
with panic and paranoia; Jem becomes cynical and disillusioned with the justice system, while
Scout (perhaps like Harper Lee herself) remains accepting and hopeful about the possibilities of
social change.

The children in the novel Scout, Jem and Dill in particular learn harsh lessons about the
ways in which small towns and other close-knit communities can sometimes marginalize and de-
value individuals who do not fit the mold. These three see what the older folks in the story are
oblivious to: the loneliness and isolation that certain social pariahs (Boo, Mayella, Dolphus and
Tom) are forced to endure.

One of the big lessons that Scout learns in the story is how some children are branded from an
early age as acceptable or unacceptable based on conditions and circumstances beyond their
control. Aunt Alexandras judgments about the Radleys, the Cunninghams, the Ewells,
Calpurnia, etc. serve as the perfect foil to Scouts more mature insights.

Harper Lee identifies with the children in the novel more than the adults with the possible
exception of Atticus. Like Scout, her sympathies lie with good-natured kids such as Dill
Harris, andWalter Cunningham, as well as the more problematic Cecil Jacobs and Mayella
Ewell. From each of them, though in different respects, we learn about the need for maintaining
dignity in the midst of squalor or as Hemingway would say grace under pressure.

Sources of Enmity (Ill-Will, Mistrust, Prejudice, Hatred, Animosity)

The novel deals most obviously with racial prejudice, but the greater lesson has to do with class
differences and how a persons inherited social status or what Aunt Alexandra calls
heredity unfairly determines how individuals are treated by others.

Perhaps the major underlying sources of friction within the community are the economic
hardships and uncertainties wrought by the Great Depression; the novel can be seen as a parable
 Name _____________________________

about how certain people react in extreme circumstances, some with fear, mistrust and suspicion,
others with fair-play, generosity and good-will.

The real source of tension in Maycomb is the ongoing rift between the country folk poor white
farmers who have been hit the hardest by the economic catastrophe and the city folk
merchants and professionals who are desperate to avoid slipping into absolute poverty. Caught in
the middle of all this are the innocent characters Boo Radley, Tom Robinson and Dolphus
Raymond who are just trying to mind their own business.

Dimensions of Social Inequality

Like other social protest novels, this novel makes a special case for the ideal of social equality
as a basic dignity that the law affords to all citizens, local or otherwise; the array of misfit
characters including Tom Robinson, Boo Radley, Dolphus Raymond, Dill and even Mayella
Ewell each in their own way, show us the price that must be paid when the true meaning of
democracy (equal rights for all, special privileges for none) is forgotten.

Maycomb, Alabama although fictional is a microcosm for all the petty

snobberies and prejudgments that exist in small towns all over America; while Harper Lee goes
to great lengths to show the logic behind the existing social order, she is also brutally honest in
exposing its shortcomings. [We see this most specifically in the struggles of Mayella Ewell,
Walter Cunningham and Dolphus Raymond.]

More than anything else, To Kill a Mockingbird is a book about the need for education, for
literacy, and the advantages of literacy as the guarantor of equality and social mobility. The
characters who value education (Scout, Atticus and Miss Maudie) are also the most generous
and magnanimous in their treatment of others; the characters who disparage learning (Bob
Ewell, Mayella Ewell and Aunt Alexandra) are more fearful and suspicious of others.