《杀死一只知更鸟》中三重社会偏见下的汤姆之死(2)

菜单

小说中的黑人汤姆是一个正直善良的人，热心地帮助白人女性梅耶拉，梅耶拉生活在一个贫苦家庭，从小就要照顾弟弟妹妹和忙活家务，还要受父亲的虐待和压迫，所以她对汤姆产生了欲望，在她的欲望化为现实，扑向汤姆的那一刻开始，汤姆就注定要为此付出生命的代价。最后，汤姆没有逃脱命运，他失去了生命。汤姆的死反映了当时美国南部的多重偏见，其中主要是种族偏见，性别偏见，以及对穷人的偏见。因此，对汤姆之死的研究可以使我们更好的理解那个时代的美国南部。本文将从这三重社会偏见的角度来分析黑人汤姆·鲁滨逊之死。

毕业论文关键词：《杀死一只知更鸟》，贫富差距，性别偏见，种族偏见

Contents

Acknowledgements

1. Introduction

1.1 The information about Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird

1.2 Literature review

1.3 Structure of thesis

2. Death due to the social prejudice against the poor

2.1 Mayella’s loneliness due to the social prejudice

2.2 Ewell’s desire for fitting into the dominant society

3. Death due to the gender prejudice

3.1 Mayella’s subordinate position to her father

3.2 Women’s lack of confidence in pursuing love

4. Death due to the racial prejudice

4.1 The deep discrimination against the black in the white community

4.2 The black’s fear for the whites

5. Conclusion

References

1. Introduction

1.1 The information about Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird is the best work of Harper Lee, an American novelist. The novel was published in 1960, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. It has been widely praised and considered as the autobiography of its writer, which can give readers a glimpse of the Lee’s child life in Alabama. Chicago Sun-times noted that To Kill a Mockingbird is a precious cultural relic of the era, demonstrating a kinder, more elegant and simpler world which preserves hope and affection for human beings.

There are a lot of symbolic meanings in the novel, whose title is symbolic and suggestive, for instance. It seems to ask that if the mockingbird represents goodness, whether it will be killed, which is the major question in the novel or the theme of the novel. The background of this story is set in the 1930s during the Great Depression, which caused devastating effects to both the rich and the poor. In those days, personal income, prices dropped, as well as tax revenue. Just like Lee has depicted in the novel, "People moved slowly then. They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of the stores around it, took their time about everything. A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. There was no money to buy it with, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County."(Harper Lee, 6) It’s a typically old and tired town due to the impact of the Great Depression. The novel was published in 1960, which is also during African-American Civil Rights Movement. So the anti-discrimination in this novel serves as a strong support to the Civil Rights Movement.文献综述

The story is located in a typical American Southern town, Maycomb. It tells about life in the little town and mainly focuses on a 6-year-old little girl, Scout Finch with her brother, Jem and their father, Atticus Finch. We usually pide the novel into two parts. Part one serves as foreshadow of the whole story, which deals with the children’s curiosity and interest towards their mysterious neighbor, Arthur Boo Radley. Boo is a horrible and frightening image in children’s mind at the start, but with the progress of the story, he is find to be a very kind and innocent man. Part two is another important event happens in this southern town, which is about the defense for a young black man, Tom Robinson. Atticus Finch, a lawyer in Maycomb, defends Tom in spite of the opposition from the whole town. Because he is conscious enough to know that the young black is wrongly charged by a white father, old Ewell and his daughter. Almost the whole town stands by the whites and accused the black because of the prejudice against the black. Although Tom Robinson is finally shot by the white, Atticus has tried his best and to some extent angered this typical white-dominant southern town. And these two parts of story intersect with each other after the case is concluded. On a Halloween night, old Ewell intends to kill Scout and Jem since their father defends the black. He takes out a knife out of hatred for the Finch family and grabs the children, but all of a sudden, the malicious conduct is stopped by Boo Radley. Old Ewell is killed by Radley with his own knife which he intends to use it to kill the children. Scout Finch is the narrator, but there are two perspectives in the novel. Sometimes she tells her story like an innocent girl, and sometimes she talks like a mature woman memorizing her childhood. The novel deals with her three years’ life, during which she learned a lesson about what is good and what is evil.