The extract is taken from the book “To kill a mockingbird” written by Harper Lee. She was born in 1962 in the State of Alabama. "To Kill a Mockingbird" is her first novel and the Pulitzer Prize winning novel.
The novel depicts the life of its young narrator Jean Louse “Scout” Finch in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. Her father, Atticus Finch, is a smart lawyer with high moral standards. Atticus is appointed by the court to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who had been accused of raping a young white woman, Mayella Ewell. Although many Maycomb’s citizens disapproved, Atticus agreed to defend Tom to the best of his ability. Attitus is sure in his defendant's innocence but Tom has almost no chance to be acquitted, because the white jury will never believe the black man more than a white woman.
The extract is done in the third-person narration which is intercepted with some dialogues and it is written in dramatic, emotional and a little bit nervous keys.
A major theme of the novel is racism. And the central message is the equality of white and black people.
The plot structure of this extract is open because exposition and complication are missing. The extract starts from the scene where Atticus is in the court-room and he is “half-way through his speech to the jury”. His speech is logically organized. He speaks “easily, with the kind of detachment he uses when he dictates a letter”. During his speech the jury seems to be attentive and appreciative. That is, according to Scout, because he is not a “thuderer”. His children present in the court-room and notice some strangers in their father's behavior. Atticus tries to make the jury believe that Tom is not guilty. He says that the case “requires no minute sifting of complicated facts” and says that it is “as simple as black and white”. This simile shows that Atticus wants to use the simplest words to explain what he means.
Atticus says in his speech that Tom Robinson is not guilty but that there is a...