Final answer:
Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird' explores the themes of civil liberties and civil rights, highlighting the importance of freedoms such as conscience, worship, and speech, and the protection of inalienable rights for marginalized individuals through the story's narrative and characters.
Step-by-step explanation:
Based on To Kill a Mockingbird, the author's perspective on human rights is reflected through themes that advocate for civil liberties and civil rights. The novel explores these concepts by highlighting the inherent right of all individuals to live their lives with freedoms of conscience, worship, and speech, as well as the right to privacy. Additionally, the text delves into the recognition and restoration of rights to marginalized groups, such as African Americans through the historic 15th and 19th amendments which granted voting rights regardless of race or gender.
The story is set in a time of deep racial prejudice, seen through the eyes of the protagonist, Scout, and captures the tension between the ideals of human rights and the harsh realities of the era. The narrative particularly emphasizes the importance of civil rights through the character of Tom Robinson, whose trial exemplifies how the legal system can fail to protect the inalienable rights of individuals, especially those from marginalized groups.
Author Harper Lee uses the innocent lens of Scout to show how government and society often interfere with the exercise of human rights and how it is the duty of good citizens to stand up against such injustices. The novel ultimately promotes a message that endorses John Locke's philosophical ideals of natural rights existing as objective moral truths that should guide the creation of minimal and just government.