February 19th of this year, the writer of this novel, Harper Lee passed away at the age of 89. But the significance of To Kill a Mockingbird will never pass away. Lee is a writer who deserves our respect. For the being of To Kill a Mockingbird, her name, Harper Lee, will never be erased in the history with time passing. And her saying of never To Kill a Mockingbird needs to be known by more people. This thesis wants to emphasis the importance of this novel in literature, as well as in sociology from the perspective of social prejudice. Analyzing the death from the perspective of three social prejudices in To Kill a Mockingbird, this thesis aims to give readers a new understanding of the novel, and have deeper feeling of the author's intention.

1.2 Literature review

With the good sell quantity of more than 40 million copies in print and translated into 40 languages after it was published, the novel is regarded as a masterpiece in American literature.     

During 1960s after its publication, it has received a lot of criticisms. And since 1963, different newspapers and magazines have started to review it. Critics discuss the book primarily from the perspective of Bildungsroman, juvenile physiological, moral, racial discrimination, Southern gothic features, human’s justice, religion, feminism, and education, as well as some writing techniques, like figure analysis, symbolic meaning, and narration structure. Claudia Durst Johnson wrote To Kill a Mockingbird: Threatening Boundaries to summarize its contents, structure, historic value, and Gothic tradition and etc. 

Since Harper Lee has only published two works, and she doesn’t like appear in public. So that it is not very much information about her book. But there are still some researchers want to take challenge. In 2006, Charles J Shields published a biography of Harper Lee, Mockingbird: A portrait of Harper Lee. After years of researches, he shows us a warmhearted, high-spirited, and occasionally hardheaded woman. And in the biography, Charles J Shields also links Lee’s childhood life with her novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Charles J Shields depicts her girlhood as a tomboy in Monroeville, Alabama and the murder trial that happened in her town, which both inspire her great work.源:自'优尔.·论,文;网·www.youerw.com/

Some critics analyze To Kill a Mockingbird from the perspective of Bildungsroman, juvenile physiological and education. In He Liang’s analysis, he explains three crucial factors that influence the growth of teenagers. They are family, friendship and school education. He lists out the family problem of Mayella, the loneliness of Boo Radley, and the school education of Scouts, to indicate that teenagers are facing lots of problems which may shape their personality and character. So the novel has aroused our attention to these problems.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, there are several characters deserve deep study and analysis, like the narrator Scout, the righteous attorney Atticus, the innocent black Tom, the poor white girl Mayella, as well as the mysterious neighbor Radley. Mary McDonagh Murphy in her book Scout, Atticus, and Boo, respectively analyzes these three characters. Zhao Ying in her study shows us a naïve, naughty, upright, independent, sincere, and clever tomboy, Scout Finch. And Zhang Xiaoning, he analyzes the image of Atticus. He points out that the novel portrays the Atticus as a good son, a dutiful brother, a justicial attorney, and a good father. But he still has some shortcomings for he lives in the general background in 1930s. Some critics focus on the vulnerable characters in the novel. Zhao Nannan in her study analyzes how goodness is destroyed by evil. She thinks that Boo Radley and Tom Robinson both are kind and honest person, but discriminated by the society for different reasons. So they are scapegoats in that society, and her thesis is about how they become scapegoats.