Learning Outcome: To Kill a Mocking Bird

1.) Why is it necessary to understand the historical and cultural context of the novel?

Yes, it is necessary. This is to find out what had happened during the time when the author wrote this book, during the 1950’s. From this, we will be able to find out what happened in the past, which is under history. For the culture, by understanding the whites prejudiced against the blacks, would be able to tell us more about the culture during the 1950’s. Is this situation “whites prejudiced against blacks” happening at that time?

2.) How does it help to understand the author’s background? Is it necessary to learn about the author’s background?

By knowing the historical and cultural context of the book, we are able to infer that the author may have been in two situations when he wrote the book. One, he could be a victim of prejudice and is ostracised from the society, he feels sad and would like more people in the near future to know the impacts of being prejudiced against another person. Two, he could be prejudiced against others in the past but has reflected on his actions and feels regretful, thus writing this book, to persuade people from being prejudiced against others. It is not necessary to know, but it would be much better to know because knowing about his background would tell us directly his purpose in writing this book. If we do not know, there would be many guesses on his purpose, which may not entirely be true.

3.) Is it possible to appreciate the text without pre-reading about the historical and cultural context of the novel/ background of the novel?

Yes, it is possible to do so, however, as mentioned to the answer for question two, it would be much better. The author has written it well to allow all people to understand the story with ease and uses words such as “nigger” (name-calling) for a huge impact on the audience. He has a good storyline as well for the happenings between the blacks and the whites, as such; we are able to appreciate the text. If we are able to know about the background, probably we will know the author’s purpose in writing this book.