Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Which of the following key terms relate to Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird: Black Tuesday, Hot Steams, the Egyptian period, Missouri...

Many of the listed key terms both directly and indirectly relate to Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.

Black Tuesday was the historic day of October 29, 1929, upon which over 16 million shares were sold on the stock market, causing the fatal stock market crash that began the Great Depression. Black Tuesday was preceded by Black Monday upon which the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 12.8 percent, which created widespread panic, leading holders of stock to sell all their shares. Widespread panic led to the significant financial losses that began the Great Depression.  Though Black Tuesday is never specifically referenced in the novel, the novel is set during the Great Depression, showing us the connection between Black Tuesday and Lee's novel. We know the novel is set in the midst of the Great Depression because, in the opening chapter, Scout describes Maycomb as moving slowly at the time the novel was set due to the following reasons:



There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County. (Ch. 1)



Scout further states that the novel is set during a "time of vague optimism for some people: Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself" (Ch. 1). This serves as a reference to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first inaugural address. President Roosevelt was elected in the midst of the Great Depression due to his progressive reforms to help get the country out of the depression.

The National Recovery Act (NRA) was one of the progressive reforms President Roosevelt implemented in order to raise prices to stimulate economic recovery and create new jobs. Scout references the NRA soon after Tom Robinson's trial and untimely death. She narrates the ways in which Maycomb's citizens had moved on with their lives since his trial and death. In particular, she notes that "people had removed from their store windows and automobiles the stickers that said NRA--WE DO OUR PART" (Ch. 27).

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