Big Ben Speaking Club
invites you for the meeting on January,19, at 2:30 p.m.
Засідання розмовного клубу «Big Ben Speaking Club»
відбудеться 19 січня о 14:30
В центрі обговорення – головні проблеми, які висвітлює фільм:
- Виховання дітей в сім’ї. Фільм – виховання.
- Стереотипи, та як їх подолати.
- Звідки береться ненависть і нетерпимість?
- Злочин і кара. Трагедія людських відносин і обставин.
- Дорога до пізнання – уроки життя Джема і Скаут.
- «Не можна пізнати людину, поки не побуваєш в її шкурі…»
- «Роби,що можеш, а далі будь, що буде…»
- Хто ж насправді «пересмішник»?
A few notes about the history of the question and the book
When To Kill a Mockingbird’s story of an African-American man falsely accused of raping a white woman first appeared in 1960, the Civil Rights Movement was well on its way toward significantly revolutionizing how the U.S. conceived of race.
In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. the Board of Education that separate was not equal, paving the way for the integration of the public school system.
In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white person and was arrested, sparking a series of boycotts that were ultimately successful in changing policy. Progress was far from smooth, however:
in 1958 some southern schools closed altogether, rather than let African-Americans study alongside whites. And, in 1955, fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was brutally murdered after approaching a white woman in a store – an event that may have influenced author Harper Lee in writing To Kill a Mockingbird.
Harper Lee did not set her novel in contemporary late 1950s society, however. This novel instead takes place a few decades earlier, before the changes and conflicts of the Civil Rights era. During this period, America was watching closely the infamous Scottsboro Trials, in which two impoverished white women accused nine young black men of rape. These trials may have been one of several influences on Lee as she crafted the Mockingbird story.
The book is set in the time period of Lee’s own youth, and many critics have pointed out the similarities between her and Scout, and her childhood friend, Truman Capote, and Dill. Lee herself has said that she did not intend the book to be an autobiography. She simply wrote what she knew. It’s also her only book: she never published another novel, and, within a few years of Mockingbird’s publication, she went into a seclusion to rival that of her character Boo Radley.
While Mockingbird’s message of standing up for what’s right even when the costs are high still receives acclaim, not everyone agrees that it holds the moral high ground. While the main reason it frequently appears on the ALA’s list of banned books is its use of profanity, it’s also been challenged for its one-dimensional representation of African-Americans as docile, simple folk who need whites to protect them. While some see the novel as a powerful statement against racism, others see it as reproducing racism in a less obvious form. No matter which side a reader leans towards, the strong reactions the novel provokes just go to show that its influence remains strong even today.
