Harper Lee Affected Humanity

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Born in Monroeville of 1926, Nelle Harper Lee lived in the south through a time of segregation. She went to public schools in Monroeville and then attended Huntingdon College in Montgomery and the University of Alabama. Lee worked as an airline reservation clerk, while writing in her free time. She soon quit her job to write full time with financial help from her friends. Lee based her novel around many things she was familiar with. For example, her dad was also a lawyer, like Atticus and she was a tomboy child, similar to Scout. In addition, Tom Robinson’s trial in the novel was surrounded around the Scottsboro trial when eight black men were accused of raping white women. Harper Lee positively affected humanity in both a social and…show more content…
Lee also positively affected humanity through teaching both kids and adults educational lessons. Harper Lee has used her passion of writing to teach the world different educational and social lessons. Many of the social lessons Harper Lee taught affected humanity in a positive way. First, Harper Lee tries to teach the lesson of acceptance in all ways. The major theme and lesson she wrote about in To Kill a Mockingbird was that everybody needs to understand and accept other people. If one person’s actions are different from another person, they both have to understand that all human beings are free. Individuals are allowed to do anything they wish to, as long it is legal (Winters). Lee explained this through her book by Atticus explaining to the children that they should respect Boo Radley for who he is. Humans learn that it is important because social acceptance gains respect from others. In addition, Harper Lee kept quiet in society after her first and only successful book. Soon after writing To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee isolated herself from the rest of society, but her novel became a “revered chronicle of the South” as Paul Harris describes it. It is now commonly read by the…show more content…
In To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee writes about Jem losing his pants and Dill lying about what happened to them. The main character, Scout, explains, “We had no chance to find out: Miss Rachel went off like the town siren: ‘Do-o-o Jee-sus, Dill Harris! Gamblin’ by my fishpool? I’ll strip-poker you, sir!’” (Lee 73). Dill’s quick reactions caused him to trick the parents this time about what happened to Jem’s pants, but Lee teaches us that lying to people is not effective in any way. If the children told the truth about what happened to Jem’s pants, the parents would have safely retrieved them. Instead Jem had to sneak out of the house late at night and risk his life attempting to get his pants back. Another educational lesson Lee teaches through the book is when Scout is told not to brag about her Atticus’ amazing ability to shoot a gun. Scout and Miss Maudie converse, “’Looks like he’d be proud of it,’ I said. ‘People in their right minds never take pride in their talents,’ said Miss Maudie” (Lee 130). Lee tries to imply and teach the lesson of being humble through the above passage. The educational value of this is learning to be more humble and courteous. One educational lesson Lee did not teach through the book is that people should take the opportunity to fulfill their dreams and goals when it occurs. Harper Lee claims that writing may be one of the hardest things in the world, but it was
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