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English Year 10 - To Kill A Mockingbird: Context

A selection of resources to assist Year 10 students studying 'To Kill A Mockingbird'

Context

Historical & Social Context

Context in this article includes:

  • Life in 1930s America
  • Slavery
  • Segregation laws
  • Voting rights
  • The justice system for black people
  • Lynch mobs and the KKK

Town


Monroeville, Alabama, circa 1930.
 

What’s Changed, and What Hasn’t, in the Town That Inspired “To Kill a Mockingbird”
This article, from Smithsonian Magazine, sees the article's author travel back in time to visit Harper Lee's hometown, the setting of To Kill A Mockingbird written in 1960.

Harper Lee - Bio

Article - Chicago Tribune


The Chicago Tribune's 1960 review of Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird'


On July 17, 1960, the Chicago Tribune published its review of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird."
The original headline called it an "Engrossing First Novel of Rare Excellence." Here is the review in its entirety.

YEARS AGO a friend of mine told me about his private test for fiction. When he was reading a novel with such pleasure and satisfaction that, about two-thirds of the way thru, he found himself unconsciously slowing down, to prolong the pleasure and linger over the delight, then he knew he was reading a book which had already passed his test.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" is a first novel of such rare excellence that it will no doubt make a great many readers slow down to relish the more fully its simple distinction. It passes the test with honors...continue reading...

Art of Smart

Jim Crow Laws

What was it like growing up in Alabama under Jim Crow?

Context

Article - morality

How the moral lesson of To Kill a Mockingbird endures today

Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird is one of the classics of American literature. Never out of print, the novel has sold over 40 million copies since it was first published in 1960. It has been a staple of high school syllabuses, including in Australia, for several decades, and is often deemed the archetypal race and coming-of-age novel. For many of us, it is a formative read of our youth...continue reading...