Contemporary Australian Cultural Issues in the works of Harper Lee Essa

Harper lee examines key cultural issues in her novel to kill a mockingbird, such as racism, socio-economic status and prejudice. These issues are still relevant to contemporary Australian society. She examines these issues throughout her book in many different ways, from many different points of view and from many different opinions from the characters in the book. The book is set in a small town called Maycomb in America and takes place during the depression years. The town of Maycomb is a town which is old and is not well looked after and is described as dirty in the book. The people who live in and around Maycomb on farms are poor people, as a result of the depression. The main characters of the book are the finches. The Finch family comprises of Atticus the father and his two kids Jem and scout who narrates the story. The story is about life in maycomb seen through the eyes of children. Life in Maycomb is full of issues such as racism, socio-economic status and prejudice. Racism and socio-econic status are easily the two most noticeable issues that the book revolves around. These issues are relevant to contempory Australian society in many different ways. Socio-economic status is the main theme at the start of the book. A good example of this issue is when Jem invites Walter Cunningham to have lunch with himself, Scout and Atticus, because he does not have any lunch money as his family is too poor to afford it. They sit down for lunch and Walter drenches his food with syrup and scout thinks this is ungrateful and rude so she remarks by asking him what the Sam hill he is doing. Walter was embarrassed and Atticus shakes his head at her and she protests â€Å"but he has gone and drowned his dinner with syrup,† â€Å"he’s poured it al... ...ou only have to look at the wars going on over in the Middle East. They are all fighting over different religion which is racism. Terrorist attacks are also based on racism because a group of fanatics from all over the world do not like westerners this is racism. On a more local level you see it even at school where racism is big because Griffith High School is such a Multicultural community, all the different groups of people are grouped together for example the Afghans and the Islanders, this starts fights and arguments between different races. Socio-economic status and racism are only two issues that Harper Lee examines, as there many more which include prejudice, maturity and growing up. Harper Lee’s issues that are discussed in her book to kill a mockingbird are still contemporary issues in Australia, because they affect us and have a significant impact on us.