Letter to His Family

To me, this story was kind of confusing.  It was a letter and it did have to do with the arising Civil War, but I never completely understood why it was "A Letter to His Family."  Lee did a good job in writing this letter as you could say because he covered all of the problems between the states (Lee).  Ironically, as I read through the letter again, it made more sense to me.  I see how it is a letter to his family now thanking them for the book they sent and then talks about the different themes in the book and how they relate to what was happening in the country at the time.  Lee talks about the different things that happened to cause the Civil War and the states that left the Union because of the slavery laws (Lee).  He understood what was going to happen and reasoned with the South about why they were mad (Lee).  If I were in the South's shoes I would be mad too because we had just started to settle down after settling more Westward in the United States and then the government springs a law banning the use of slaves on the country.  To the North, they didn't care other than the massive influx of people it would cause, the drop in economy, and space wise, about the decision because at this point in time, factories had become popular and useful in the North.  In the South though, all of the crops were grown because of the massive areas of flat land that were easy to control water amounts and hoe and plow and harvest with cattle and other machinery.  Lee explains his thoughts on the situation and how he hopes that a Civil War doesn't break out before he dies (Lee).  Emmerson and Thoreau were kind of the same way in how they didn't want to fight and just wanted enough drama to happen in the country to be able to write about, but not too much to where they couldn't live their lives in peace and it got too dangerous outside their houses.

Butler, Robert. "Harper Lee's Religious Vision in To Kill a Mockingbird" New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/. 14 Feb 2012

Lee, Robert E. "Letter to his Family". Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 382-385. Print.