In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, various allusions to other literary works arise, suggesting to the adept reader their importance in the plot and in our understanding many characters and themes. Two books of particular importance, Ivanhoe and The Gray Ghost – as these two have particular importance and are mentioned relatively more than the others, but also in relation to other more minor books such as The Rover Boys, Tarzan, Tom Swift, Meditations of Joshua S. St. Clair and Popular Mechanics magazine. Tarzan, The Rover Boy, and Tom Swift are all mentioned very early in the book and in just one sentence. They are mentioned by Jean-Louise as the books that they (these are Jem, Dill and Jean) put together during their summer games. These three books are about children growing up, a central and complex theme of Lee's own novel. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayTarzan is about a wild child – John Clayton, the son of two abandoned Englishmen – Alice and John. Clayton is adopted by the monkey Kala after his parents are killed by the Monkey King Kerchak. It might be important to mention that Tarzan – the apes' name Clayton – literally means "white skin" in ape language. It is this difference between Tarzan and his adopted family of apes that drives Tarzan away. Besides the obvious theme of growing up which appears in both Tarzan and To Kill a Mockingbird there is the theme of looking different, ironically in Tarzan it is white skin and in To Kill a Mockingbird it is white skin black, which creates a divide between people. Both The Rover Boys and Tom Swift are about children who think differently from adults. The Rover Boys is about a group of kids – Sam, Tom and Dick – who run around almost unsupervised (a bit reminiscent of Jem, Dill and Jean) solving crimes and stopping adults from doing wrong. For example, in The Rover Boys in School, the children manage to have one of their father's business enemies, and part-time criminal, Arnold Baxter, arrested after fixing Dick's watch – which was given to him by his father aged several years – by a tramp. Tom Swift talks about a young child-inventor and his tinkering and invention through his father's business, Swift Construction Company. Throughout the series, Tom develops inventions such as the "electric rifle", a type of Taser gun, and the "photo phone". In my opinion, both of these series are largely about how young people think differently and sometimes more expansively than adults. This theme is also present in To Kill a Mockingbird where Lee points out that children, notably Jean and Jem, think in a more innocent and sometimes purer way than adults. This is shown in the scene outside the courthouse where Mr. Dolphus Raymond is not afraid to show the children that he is not in fact a drunk but is only pretending to be. 'be, because they can understand it. At the end of the book, Jem is seen reading Popular Mechanics magazine, which makes me think he's grown up. In my opinion, the fact that Lee decided to move Jem from reading about an entrepreneur – Tom Swift – to reading about other people's inventions in Popular Mechanics shows us that Jem has grown up, a very important theme in To Kill a Mockingbird, and as he grew up, he lost the advantages of a child's mind, the ability to sympathize and understand those around him without prejudice. Ivanhoe appears in To Kill a Mockingbird as the book Jem reads to Mrs. Dubose to atone for the destruction of her flowers. Ivanhoe was released earlyof the 19th century by Sir Walter Scott on England after the failure of the Third Crusade. The book is about Ivanhoe, a 12th century Englishman, who returns from a campaign in the Holy Land. During the course of the novel, future Ivanhoe is kidnapped by one of the main antagonists – Sir Brian de-Boise Gilbert. De-Boise is a corrupt Knight Templar and close friend of Prince John. During a trial for the life of Ivanhoe's future fiancé, which ends in a melee between Ivanhoe and de-Boise, de-Boise suffers a heart attack and dies. The returning King Charles takes this as a sign of his guilt and the innocence of the future Ivanhoe. I think Lee chose to read this book to Mrs. Dubose for a very specific reason. In my opinion, the fact that de-Boise's name is pronounced very similar to Mrs. Dubose's name is not a coincidence. I believe the reason is so that we, the readers, understand what Lee's true opinion of Mrs. Dubose is. This opinion being that although she is portrayed as courageous and virtuous, the fact that her death is so similar to de-Boise's shows that she is in fact guilty. The fact that she died bravely does not repent of her wickedness towards Jem, Jean and everyone in general. The irony of the situation is that while Jem is there, repenting of his actions, those actions being the destruction of Mrs. Dubose's flowers and John's staff, Mrs. Dubose is there, supposedly, repenting of all the wickedness in her life, but in fact she only adds to it by making Jem repent of all his actions. and Jean's time there is horrible. The book Meditations by Joshua S. St. Clair is mentioned in To Kill a Mockingbird when introduced by Jean and Jem's Aunt Alexandra as she tries to impress upon them the importance of their family's heritage. Throughout the book, the idea of ​​family classification and family inheritance is very present. The idea of ​​family classification is that each family has a “streak,” in Aunt Alexandra’s words, or characteristic that each member of that family exhibits. You can see this from the beginning of the book where John says that it is "a source of shame to some members of the family that we have no recorded ancestors on either side of the Battle of Hastings", the Battle of Hastings being a battle that took place between the Anglo-Saxon King Harold II and Duke William II of Normandy in 1066. The family characteristics are very visible when John describes Walter Cunningham to Miss Caroline. When describing her predicament to him, she uses phrases such as "he's a Cunningham" and "The Cunninghams never took anything they couldn't pay back", as if all Cunninghams acted and thought the same way. All of this is seen in the way Aunt Alexandra speaks to Jem and Jean about their cousin Joshua. She describes him as "a beautiful character" whereas Atticus, unromantic about his family heritage, had described Joshua to his children as he was: a sewer inspector who had attempted to assassinate the president and who had cost Joshua his life. family a lot of money after a terrible failure. I believe Harper Lee brought this book so that we could appreciate the different approaches to family that are so important in the Finch family. On one hand, you have Aunt Alexandra who romanticizes her family's past, while making it grander and haughtier with each retelling. Whereas Atticus' approach is based on facts. Furthermore, Atticus does not feel the need to exaggerate his family history or even mention it; Atticus is a man of the present and not a romantic of the past. The story of the Gray Ghost is only mentioned twice in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. This is a.