A Critical Discourse Analysis of Power Relations of Tom's Trail in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mocking Bird

It is clear that understanding the nature of power relations in a literary text will make the process of interpretation easier. The objective of this paper is to analyze power relations in Tom's trial in Harper Lee's To kill a MockingBird from a critical discourse analysis perspective. Thus the language of the characters in the trial will be examined in relation to the revelation of their power relations throughout the progress of the trial.

Every possible utterance by the characters will be critically analyzed using repetition, irony, metaphor as well as other literary terms. The importance of this critical analysis is to study the social interaction among the main characters by examining the linguistic interaction. The researcher concludes that it is necessary and important to study and comprehend power relations of Tom's trail in Lee's To Kill a Mocking Bird.