To Kill a Mockingbird is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. Due to the multiple themes addressed in the novel, it has the genre characteristics of a bildungsroman and a Southern gothic. Upon its release, it became instantly successful and has become a classic of modern American fiction. The novel is loosely based on the author's observations of her family and neighbors, as well as an event that occurred near her hometown when she was 10 years old.
Lee's novel is widely taught in schools in English speaking countries with lessons that tie into tolerance and prejudice. The novel addresses themes such as courage, racial injustice, the death of innocence, tragedy, and coming of age, set against a backdrop of life in the Deep South. The character of Atticus Finch, the narrator's father, has served as a moral hero for many readers, and a singular model of integrity for lawyers. One writer noted its impact in saying, "In the twentieth century, To Kill a Mockingbird is probably the most widely read book dealing with race in America, and its protagonist, Atticus Finch, the most enduring fictional image of racial heroism."
To Kill a Mockingbird has been ranked by librarians along with the Bible on lists of books of importance. It has proven to be not only an extraordinarily influential book, but a controversial one as well. Initially perceived as a novel addressing racial justice, To Kill a Mockingbird has been the target of various campaigns to have it removed from public classrooms, often for its use of racial epithets. The book was successfully adapted for film by director Robert Mulligan with a screenplay by Horton Foote in 1962. In 1990 it was adapted as a play that is performed annually in Harper Lee's hometown of Monroeville, Alabama and has transformed the town into a tourist destination. To date, it is Lee's only published novel.
Background
While working in New York City as a reservation clerk for British Overseas Airways Corporation in 1957, Harper Lee approached a literary agent referred by her childhood friend Truman Capote. After she submitted several essays and short stories about people in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, an editor at J. B. Lippincott advised her to quit the airline and concentrate on her writing. A gift from friends made it possible for her to write for a year without working a full-time job.[3]
Lee was a relatively unpublished author up to that time. She attended Huntingdon College and the University of Alabama, writing for the campus literary magazines: Huntress at Huntingdon and Rammer Jammer, a humor magazine at the University of Alabama. At both schools, she wrote short stories and pieces about racial injustice, and at both schools the themes of her pieces were extraordinarily rare.[4] After moving to New York City, Lee worked on the book for two and a half years, initially titling it Atticus, however, she changed the title to reflect a story that went beyond a simple character portrait.[5] A description of the book's creation by the National Endowment for the Arts relates a story telling that Lee, in frustration during the writing process, tossed the manuscript out the window into the snow below. Her agent made her go down to the street and retrieve it.[6]
The editorial team at Lippincott tried to warn Lee that she would probably sell only several thousand copies at the most.[7] In 1964, Lee recalled her hopes for the book when she said, "I never expected any sort of success with 'Mockingbird.'…I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers but, at the same time, I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped for a little, as I said, but I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I'd expected."[8] Instead of a "quick and merciful death," Reader's Digest and Condensed Books published portions of the novel which gave it a wide readership almost immediately.
Plot summary
Main article: List of characters in To Kill a Mockingbird
The story takes place during three years of the Great Depression, and is narrated by Scout Finch, starting when she is 6 years old. Scout lives with her older brother Jem and their widowed father Atticus, a middle-aged lawyer in the fictional small town of Maycomb, Alabama. Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill who comes to stay with his Aunt Rachel for the summer. The three children are terrified and fascinated with a phantom neighbor named "Boo" Radley, a mysterious recluse the adults of Maycomb are hesitant to speak of and who few have seen for many years. The children feed each other's imaginations with rampant rumors about his grotesque appearance and his reasons for remaining a recluse, while dreaming of ways to get him to emerge from his house.
Following various misadventures during two summers with Dill, Scout and Jem find that someone is leaving them small gifts in a tree outside the Radley place, on their route to school. The phantom Boo makes several unseen appearances to the children displaying various gestures of affection. Scout and Jem appraise their small town neighbors through the eyes of children. With Atticus' guidance not to judge others until they have walked around in that person's skin, the children discover many instances of quiet strength and dignity in the most unlikely people.
Atticus is assigned to defend a black man named Tom Robinson, who has been accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a young white woman. To the consternation of many of Maycomb's citizens, however, he intends to defend Tom to the best of his ability. Jem and Scout are then subjected to the taunts of "nigger-lover" from other children. Scout is tempted to defend Atticus' honor by fighting them despite Atticus telling her not to do so. For his part, Atticus faces a group of men intending to lynch Tom, but escapes the situation with the unwitting help of Scout, Jem, and Dill.
The time arrives for Tom Robinson's trial, and Scout, Jem and Dill watch secretly from the colored balcony. Atticus shows that the accusers, Mayella Ewell and her father, the town drunk Bob Ewell, are lying. It becomes clear that the friendless Mayella was making sexual advances towards Tom and was caught by her father. Despite the significant evidence pointing to Tom's innocence, he is convicted. Jem's faith in justice is badly shaken as is Atticus' when a hopeless Tom is shot and killed while trying to escape from prison.
Bob Ewell feels humiliated by the trial and vows revenge. He menaces Tom Robinson's widow, tries to break into the judge's house, and spits in Atticus' face on a town street. Finally, he attacks the defenseless Jem and Scout as they walk home from a Halloween pageant at their school. In the struggle, Jem's arm is broken while trying to escape with Scout. In the darkness and confusion, someone has come to their rescue. The mysterious man carries Jem home where Scout realizes it is the reclusive Boo Radley.
Maycomb's sheriff arrives and discovers that Bob Ewell has been killed. The sheriff argues with Atticus about the prudence of giving Boo the credit for it. They eventually settle on the story that Ewell simply fell on his own knife during the struggle with Jem and Scout. Boo asks Scout to walk him home, and after she says goodbye to him at his front door, he disappears again. While standing on the Radley porch, Scout imagines the events of the last three years from Boo's perspective and regrets that they never repaid him for the gifts he had given them.
Autobiographical elements
Lee has said that the novel is not an autobiography, but rather that one "should write about what he knows and write truthfully." Despite this, several similarities between her life growing up and Scout's life as narrator are evident. Lee's father, Amasa Coleman Lee, was an attorney and editor and publisher of the Monroeville newspaper. He defended two black men accused of murder in 1919. He was inexperienced and they were convicted, hanged, and mutilated. He never tried another criminal case. While her father was not initially as liberal as Atticus in terms of racial relations, he gradually became more so in his later years. She had a brother, Edwin, four years her senior, as Jem was also four years older than Scout. Like Calpurnia, a black housekeeper came once a day to take care of the house and family. Scout's mother died when she was two, but Lee's mother lived until 1951. She was prone to a nervous condition and if not physically absent, was mentally and emotionally absent. Capote, who was then known as Truman Persons, served as the model for Dill. Like Dill, who lived next door during the summer with his Aunt Rachel, Capote lived next door to her in Monroeville when his mother sent him to live with aunts when she went to New York City. Like Dill, Capote had an impressive imagination and a gift for fascinating stories and he and Lee were very good friends. Both Lee and Capote were atypical children: Lee loved to read and was a scrappy tomboy, quick to fight, and she and Capote acted out and made up stories together they wrote on an old Underwood typewriter Lee's father gave them. Capote called the two of them "apart people."
Down the street from the Lees lived a family whose house was always boarded up; they served as the models for the Radleys. The son of the family got into some legal trouble and the father kept him at home for 24 years for the shame he brought them. He was hidden away until he was virtually forgotten by everyone he knew. He died in 1952. Much speculation has taken place about the inspiration for the story of Tom Robinson. When Lee was 10 years old, a white woman near Monroeville accused a black man named Walter Lett of raping her. The story and the trial were covered by her father's newspaper. Lett was convicted and sentenced to death, but a series of letters claiming Lett had been falsely accused caused his sentence to be commuted to life in prison where he died of tuberculosis in 1937. Scholars have guessed that the inspiration for Tom Robinson's plight was the infamous case of the Scottsboro Boys,[19] nine black men who were accused and convicted of raping two white women on very poor evidence in the 1930s. Emmett Till, a black teenager who was murdered for flirting with a white woman in Mississippi in 1955 was also considered to be the model for Tom Robinson. Historians point to Till's murder, trial, and the media coverage of both as the catalyst event that spurred the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. Although there are many similarities between Tom Robinson, the Scottsboro Boys incident and Emmett Till, Lee stated in response to a question regarding the Scottsboro Boys in 2005 that she had in mind something less sensational, although the case served the same purpose in displaying Southern attitudes about prejudice.
Style
Harper Lee uses the narrator's voice as a child and as a grown woman reflecting on her childhood. At times, she blends the voices so well that upon first reading, reviewers were incredulous that a child could use the preternatural vocabulary Scout used, and have the depth of understanding she exhibited.[22] On writing about Harper Lee's style and her use of humor throughout a story that at times is not particularly funny, Jacqueline Tavernier-Courbin stated, "To Kill a Mockingbird is one of those rare books that expose some of the worst aspects of human nature such as cruelty, bigotry, hypocrisy, and racism in a way that not only allows the reader to realize the depth of these human failings and the pain and destruction they cause but also provides some insights into how people can be capable of the worst - and the best."
Scout's foil as a girl who beats up multiple boys, hates wearing dresses, and swears for the fun of it is used to great humorous effect, but Tavernier-Courbin also points to Lee's use of parody, satire, and irony to address complex issues. Parody and satire are use most effectively by the juxtaposition of Scout's childish comprehension of complex traditions. However, the most unfunny situations Lee treats with irony, as Jem and Scout try to understand how Maycomb embraces racism and still sincerely tries to remain a decent society. Humor is used to such an extent that Tavernier-Courbin suggests an alternate meaning for the title of the book. Lee is doing the mocking: of education, the justice system, and her own society.
Lee also drives the plot in entertaining ways. When Atticus is out of town, Jem locks a Sunday school classmate in the church basement with the furnace while playing Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego, which prompts Calpurnia to escort Scout and Jem to her church where they get a glimpse into her personal life, as well as Tom Robinson's. The reason for the Halloween pageant is due to two spinsters' furniture being stolen and put in their own basement as a practical joke by neighborhood children the previous year. Scout falls asleep during the pageant and makes a tardy entrance onstage, causing the pageant audience to laugh uproariously, and Judge Taylor to laugh so hard he has to go outside and take his pills. Scout is so distracted and embarrassed she prefers to go home in her ham costume, which saves her life.
Legal allusions
Main article: Atticus Finch
Claudia Durst Johnson noted about available critique of the novel that, "a greater volume of critical readings has been amassed by two legal scholars in law journals than by all the literary scholars in literary journals." Alice Petry remarked that "Atticus has become something of a folk hero in legal circles and is treated almost as if he were an actual person." The novel is also noted for its extensive allusions to legal issues, particularly when not describing the courtroom scenes. The opening quote by Charles Lamb reads, "Lawyers, I suppose, were children once." Johnson noted even in Scout and Jem's childhood world, compromises and treaties are struck with each other by spitting on one's palm; laws are discussed by Atticus and his children: is it right that Bob Ewell hunts and traps out of season? And many social codes are broken by people in symbolic courtrooms: Mr. Dolphus Raymond has been exiled by society for marrying a black woman and having interracial children with her; Mayella Ewell is beaten by her father in punishment for kissing Tom Robinson; Boo Radley receives a punishment far greater than any court could give him by being turned into a non-person.[29] Scout repeatedly breaks codes and laws and reacts to her punishment for them: she comes home from school after reading, writing, and offending her teacher for doing so, "weary from the day's crimes," she refuses to wear frilly clothes, saying that Aunt Alexandra's "fanatical" attempts to place her in them made her feel "a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on (her)." Johnson states, "The novel is a study of how Jem and Scout begin to perceive the complexity of social codes and how the configuration of relationships dictated by or set off by those codes fails or nurtures the inhabitants of (their) small worlds."
Themes
The novel was immensely popular when published, and was reviewed by at least 30 newspapers and magazines. Claudia Durst Johnson, who has written several books and articles about the novel noticed an intriguing treatment of the book by literary scholars. In 1994 she wrote, "In the 33 years since its publication, it has never been the focus of a dissertation, and it has been the subject of only six literary studies, several of them no more than a couple of pages long." Eric Sunderquist agreed when he wrote that the book is "an icon whose emotive sway remains strangely powerful because it also remains unexamined." As time progresses and more scholars view the impact the novel has had as well as the time in which it was written, more thematic elements are recognized.
Southern life through a child's eyes
One of the first noted motifs in To Kill a Mockingbird is the complexities of life and its disappointments seen and understood through the eyes of children. In using this format, Lee is able to tell a "delightfully deceptive" story that mixes the simplicity of childhood observation with adult situations, complicated by hidden motivations and unquestioned tradition. When the book was released, reviewers noted two separate parts of the book, and opinion was mixed as to how well Lee was able to tie the parts together. The first part of the novel deals with the children's fascination with Boo Radley and how they felt safe and comfortable in their neighborhood. Reviewers were generally charmed by Scout and Jem's observations of their quirky neighbors. Fred Erisman was so impressed by Lee's detailed explanations of the people of Maycomb, that he labeled the book's major theme as Southern romanticism. Using the examples of Aunt Alexandra's tendency to explain Maycomb's inhabitants' faults or advantages through genealogy (families that have gambling streaks, drinking streaks, for example), Lee's descriptions of the Finch family history and the history of Maycomb, Mayella Ewell's apparent powerlessness to admit to what she did, and Atticus' definition of "fine folks" being people with good sense who do the best they can with what they have, the Southern caste system is used to explain almost every character's behavior in the novel, to the point that The South itself, with its traditions and taboos, seems to affect the plot more than the characters or the action.
Racial injustice in the segregated South
The second part deals with what Harding LeMay termed, "the spirit-corroding shame of the civilized white Southerner in the treatment of the Negro," referring to Tom Robinson's trial and his subsequent death. In the years that followed immediately after its release, many reviewers considered To Kill a Mockingbird a novel primarily concerned with race relations, and both LeMay and Granville Hicks expressed doubt that children as sheltered as Scout and Jem could understand the complexities and horrors involved in the trial for Tom Robinson's life.
Claudia Durst Johnson notes "it is reasonable to believe" that the novel was shaped by two newsworthy events involving racial issues in Alabama. Rosa Parks' refusal to sit at the back of the bus sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955. A year later, Autherine Lucy and Polly Myers were admitted to Lee's college, the University of Alabama, causing riots on campus and eventually leading to Myers withdrawing her application and Lucy being expelled. In writing about the impact of the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement on the novel's construction, two other literary scholars remarked, "To Kill a Mockingbird was written and published amidst the most significant and conflict-ridden social change in the South since the Civil War and Reconstruction. Inevitably, despite its mid-1930s setting, the story told from the perspective of the 1950s voices the conflicts, tensions, and fears induced by this transition." The novel's impact on race relations in the United States was noted as a factor in its success, that it "arrived at the right moment to help the South and the nation grapple with the racial tensions (of) the accelerating civil rights movement." The novel's release is so closely associated with the Civil Rights movement, many analyses of the book and biographies of Harper Lee include important moments in the movement, despite the fact that she had no direct involvement in any of them.
Johnson illustrated the passionate emotions the book caused in the realm of race relations. The book has been challenged in schools and libraries since its publication, one of the first incidents being in Hanover, Virginia in 1966 for being immoral (a parent initially protested the use of rape as a plot point). Johnson provided examples of letters to the editor of the local newspapers. These letters ranged from amusement to fury, and those letters that expressed the most outrage alluded to the disturbing racial aspects of Mayella Ewell's attraction to Tom Robinson, even over the depictions of rape. Harper Lee sent $10 US to The Richmond News Leader suggesting it to be used toward the enrollment of "the Hanover County School Board in any first grade of its choice."
One literary scholar made symbolic connections between instances of racial injustice in the novel. Atticus must shoot a dog with rabies even though it is not his job to do so. Carolyn Jones claimed the dog represented prejudice within the town of Maycomb, and Atticus, who waits on a deserted street to shoot the dog, must also rid the disease of racism from the town by himself. He faces a group intending to lynch Tom Robinson alone again, and once more in the courthouse during Tom's trial. Lee even uses dreamlike imagery from the mad dog incident to describe some of the courtroom scenes. Jones wrote, "The real mad dog in Maycomb is the racism that denies the humanity of Tom Robinson...When Atticus makes his summation to the jury, he literally bares himself to the jury's and the town's anger."
For its influence and impact on race relations for white readers, however, Diann Baecker recognized a different reception by black readers. She noted that the black characters in the novel are rarely explored as fully in the same way the white characters are. Beryle Banfield noted the book's use of stereotype in the depiction of superstition among blacks, the use racial epithets, and that Calpurnia is an updated version of the "contented slave" character. Roslyn Siegel included Tom Robinson as an example of the recurring motif of black man as "stupid, pathetic, defenseless, and dependent upon the fair dealing of the whites, rather than his own intelligence to save him." often used by Southern writers. Baecker contended that the use of Scout as a child narrator allows a detached description of a story about racial conflict when it does not affect her directly. Baecker asserted that the use of Scout's narration "functions as the not-me which allows the rest of us - black and white, male and female - to find our relative position in society."
Class differences
In a 1964 interview, Lee remarked that her aspiration was "to be...the Jane Austen of South Alabama." Jean Blackall compared Lee's novel with Austen's multiple novels about class differences to determine Lee's inspiration for elements in To Kill a Mockingbird. Although Lee and Austen wrote about different classes: Lee of the Finch family and their neighbors in the middle class who were poor in the Great Depression, the lower class whites of the Ewells and Cunninghams; and blacks, who were by social situation in the lowest class, Blackall pointed out that both Austen and Lee challenged the social status quo, and both writers valued individual worth over social standing. Scout embarrasses her classmate, the poorer Walter Cunningham, while hosting him at the Finch home during lunch one day, and Calpurnia, their black cook, chastises and punishes her for doing so. Atticus respects Calpurnia's judgment and even stands up to his sister, the formidable Aunt Alexandra, when she strongly suggests they fire Calpurnia. Calpurnia even teaches Scout her first lesson about being a lady, contrary to Aunt Alexandra's attempts to place her in frilly girl clothing to nudge her in that direction, when she demonstrates "the command of two languages" in speaking improper English while with her church congregation, then telling Scout she does it so they will not feel lower than she is. Blackall summarizes the shared themes between Lee and Austen in including "affirmation of order in society, obedience, courtesy, and respect for the individual without regard for status."
Furthermore, Theodore and Grace-Ann Hovet noted that Harper Lee's approach to class and race was unique in writing, "Rather than ascribing racial prejudice primarily to 'poor white trash'...Lee demonstrates how issues of gender and class intensify prejudice, silence the voices that might challenge the existing order, and greatly complicate many Americans' conception of the causes of racism and segregation."The Hovets also noted Lee's use of middle class voice in her narration that effectively allowed an intimacy with the reader regardless of class or cultural background that helped to foster a sense of nostalgia with readers. As Scout and Jem are precocious and watch or enter relationships with many different classes of people, the reader is allowed relationships with the conservative antebellum Mrs. Dubose, the lower class Ewells and the Cunninghams who are equally poor but behave in vastly different ways, the wealthy but ostracized Mr. Dolphus Raymond, and Calpurnia and other members of the black community. Scout and Jem learn Atticus' rule not to judge someone until they've walked around in someone's skin in order to gain a greater understanding of people's motives and behavior and to ignore transparent barriers between them such as race and class.
Courage and compassion
Courage is explored in several ways in the novel.[57] Specifically regarding the relevance of the story to children, Susan Jolley wrote that Scout, Jem, and Dill's actings of Boo Radley's life story, and dares to touch his porch are attempts to summon their courage in the face of Boo Radley's frightening unknown presence.[58] Scout's impulsive inclination to fight students who insult Atticus are her attempts to stand up for him and defend him. Many scholars note, however, that Atticus is the moral center of the novel, and he teaches Jem one of the most poignant lessons of courage displayed in their frail and unpleasant neighbor Mrs. Dubose, who is determined to break herself of a morphine addiction before the end her life. With a statement that foreshadows Atticus' motivation for defending Tom Robinson, he tells Jem that courage is "when you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what,"
Another of Atticus' statements that Jolley equated in importance was his lesson to Scout that "you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb around in his skin and walk around in it."[60][58] Scout considers it later when she stumbles upon the attempted lynching, and tries to engage Mr. Cunningham in conversation about his "entailment", and again when listening to Mayella Ewell's testimony when Mayella reacts with confusion to Atticus' question if she has any friends. Scout offers that she must be lonelier than Boo Radley. The statement that seemed to make the most negative impact in Tom Robinson's testimony was that he felt sorry for Mayella. After walking Boo home after he saves their lives, Scout stands on the Radley porch and relives the events of the past three years the way Boo must have witnessed them. Jolley remarked, "(W)hile the novel concerns tragedy and injustice, heartache and loss, it also carries with it a strong sense (of) courage, compassion, and an awareness of history to be better human beings."
Gender roles
In the same way Lee explores Jem's character development in coming to grips with his once comfortable, but now overtly racist and unjust society, Lee treats Scout's character to a realization of what being female means, and several female characters influence her development. Michele Ware noted that Scout's primary identification is with the masculine characters of her father and older brother, but this allows Scout to describe the variety and depth of female characters in the novel as one of them, and as an outsider. Scout's primary female models are Calpurnia and her neighbor Miss Maudie, both of whom are strong willed, independent, and protective of Scout. Ware also noted Mayella Ewell influences Scout's views of women as she watches Ewell use this power to destroy an innocent man as a mask to hide her own desire for him. Ware summarized the feminist sensibility in To Kill a Mockingbird in writing, "Scout emerges from her childhood experiences with a clear sense of her place in her community and an awareness of her potential power as the woman she will one day be."
Absent mothers and abusive fathers were also a noted theme in the novel. Laura Fine pointed out Scout and Jem's mother died before Scout could remember her. Two mothers who could have protected their children were notably absent: Mayella's mother is dead, and Mrs. Radley died before Boo was confined at home. Apart from Atticus, the fathers described are abusers.[62] Bob Ewell, it is hinted, has a sexual relationship with his daughter, and she is so starved for a compassionate human relationship that she saves seven nickels over the course of a year to be alone with Tom Robinson.[50] Mr. Radley takes his son home from court and imprisons him in the home until he is no longer remembered as a person, but as a phantom and an example of what meanness can do. Although Bob Ewell and Mr. Radley are traditionally masculine men, it is suggested that men like them as well as the traditionally feminine hypocrites at the Missionary Society can lead society astray. Fine suggests that Atticus' disparate nature from other men in the novel is a different model of masculinity. "It is the job of real men who embody the traditional masculine qualities of heroic individualism, bravery, and an unshrinking knowledge of and dedication to social justice and morality, to set the society straight."
Dean Shackleford noticed the female characters who commented the most on Scout's lack of willingness to adhere to a more feminine role were also those who purveyed the most racist and classist points of view. Mrs. Dubose chastises Scout for not wearing a dress and camisole, and indicates she's ruining the family name by not doing so, as does Aunt Alexandra who says Scout is a burden on her father, although Atticus later disagrees. Mrs. Dubose also insults Atticus' intentions to defend Tom Robinson, although only to his children and not apparently to his face. Aunt Alexandra seems to negate Atticus' lesson not to judge people when she declares the Cunninghams "trash". By balancing the masculine influences of Atticus and Jem with the feminine influences of Calpurnia and Miss Maudie, Shackleford wrote, "Lee gradually demonstrates that Scout is becoming a feminist in the South, for with the use of first-person narration, she indicates that Scout/ Jean Louise still maintains the ambivalence about being a Southern lady she possessed as a child."
Death of innocence
More than one reviewer noted that mockingbirds are mentioned several times throughout the novel. That the family's last name is Finch is not a coincidence: it was Lee's mother's maiden name, but fit fully with the motif of songbirds as symbols. In fact, the title of the book is illustrated by this theme. One Christmas, Atticus gives his children air-rifles for their presents. Atticus refuses to teach them to shoot, instead leaving that to their Uncle Jack. Atticus does warn them however that, although they can "shoot all the bluejays they want," they must remember that "it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."[64] Not certain why this is, Scout approaches her neighbor Miss Maudie Atkinson about it who explains that it is a sin because mockingbirds never harm any other living creature. She points out that mockingbirds simply provide pleasure with their songs, saying, "They don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us."
Edwin Bruell caught the symbolism when he wrote in 1964, "'To kill a mockingbird' is to kill that which is innocent and harmless - like Tom Robinson." Given the benefit of time, scholars noted that when Lee was trying to make a moral point, she often returned to the mockingbird theme.Tom Robinson certainly serves as the embodiment of the innocent destroyed by carelessness or deliberation. But when the reader begins to note the many times mockingbirds are mentioned, Tom becomes one of many innocents in the novel who are affected by carelessness to varying degrees. Christopher Metress notices the use of the mockingbird as a symbol for Boo Radley in writing, "Instead of wanting to exploit Boo for her own fun (as she does in the beginning of the novel by putting on gothic plays about his history), Scout comes to see him as a "mockingbird" - that is, as someone with an inner goodness that must be cherished."
Lee uses the loss of innocence (and innocents) in so many instances that reviewer R. A. Dave claimed it is inevitable that all the characters have faced or will face defeat. The theme of the story then becomes tragedy. In exploring how each character deals with his or her own personal defeat, Lee builds a framework to judge whether the characters are heroes or fools. She assists her readers in these judgments, alternating between unabashed adoration and biting irony.
Harper Lee remains famously detached from interpreting the novel, and has since the mid 1960s. However, she gave what little insight into her themes that she could, when in a rare response to the Hanover, Virginia immorality debate, she wrote, "Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that To Kill a Mockingbird spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code of honor and conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of all Southerners."
Genres
Southern Gothic
Due to the multiple themes of the novel, scholars have been able to characterize it both as a Southern Gothic and a bildungsroman. The a Southern Gothic is a genre of literature that addresses plots and characters set in the Deep South that includes elements of the grotesque, supernatural, or the extreme mental eccentricities of its characters. Southern Gothic literature often involves elements of injustice and racial inequality featuring characters who are outsiders in a strict society. Evidence of gothic elements in To Kill a Mockingbird include Boo Radley's ghost-like presence and grotesque imagined appearance, and the mystery surrounding the Radley house (poisoned pecans in the forbidden yard). Lee used the term Gothic to describe Maycomb's courthouse's architecture, and Dill's exaggerated and morbid performances when he plays Boo Radley and describes how he ran away from home.
Scholars have written about the points of view by outsiders in the novel. Gay and lesbian writers listed the novel at #64 in the Publishing Triangle's 100 Best Gay and Lesbian Novels in 1999, reasoning that the novel is "a prime example of the proto-lesbian novel focusing on southern tomboys," and, "the protagonists of the novel are outsiders - 'disloyal to civilization'." Laura Fine noted that Lee took on every establishment of authority in the fictional town of Maycomb: the school and its teachers, the criminal justice system, and the religious establishments. Yet Scout still revered Atticus as an authority above all others, in his creed that taking a stand to follow one's conscience is the highest priority, even when the result is social ostracism. However, Jean Blackall expressed doubt that the novel is a Southern Gothic with the point that Boo Radley turns out to be human after all, protective, and benevolent. And Lee was writing about her small town with an admirable honesty in addressing themes of Mrs. Dubose's drug addiction, Bob Ewell's alcoholism, allusions to Mayella Ewells incest, rape, racial violence, and Tom Robinson's "suicidal despair" as universal underlying issues in an orderly society.
Bildungsroman
By using children who must face hard realities in a cruel world, the book becomes more an example of bildungsroman than Southern Gothic. Novels in the bildungsroman genre grew in popularity in Victorian England, and feature a character who is thrust out of his or her contentment by witnessing a shocking event, and who develops over the course of the novel to make sense of the event in his or her social setting. Lee seems to examine Jem's sense of loss about how his neighbors have disappointed him more than Scout's. "It's like bein' a caterpillar wrapped in a cocoon...I always thought Maycomb folks were the best folks in the world, least that's what they seemed like," Jem says to Miss Maudie the day after the trial, and he continues to struggle with understanding separations in race and class. However just as the novel is an illustration of the changes Jem faces, it is also an exploration of the realities Scout must face as an atypical girl who is about to become a woman. Michele Ware justified the novel as Scout's coming of age in writing, "To Kill a Mockingbird can be read as a feminist bildungsroman, for Scout emerges from her childhood experiences with a clear sense of her place in her community and an awareness of her potential power as the woman she will one day be."
Reception
Despite the initial warnings her editors gave to Lee that the book might not sell well, To Kill a Mockingbird was a sensation. It made Lee very famous and quite wealthy in a very short period of time. During the years immediately after the book was published, Lee enjoyed the attention the book received and granted interviews and visits to schools and other groups. Although some editorials lamented the use of poor white Southerners, and one-dimensional black victims, it was well-received in her hometown and throughout Alabama.
The novel became widely available through its inclusion in the Book of the Month Club, Reader's Digest, and Condensed Books. The book earned the Pulitzer Prize for 1961, and the Brotherhood Award of National Conference of Christians and Jews in the same year. One year after initial publication, To Kill a Mockingbird had been translated into 10 languages. By 1982, over 15 million copies of the book had been sold; ten years later, the sales figures had climbed to 18 million copies of the paperback version alone. The book has never been out of print in hardcover or paperback. It has sold over 30 million copies and been translated into over 40 languages since first being published. Over the years, To Kill a Mockingbird has become part of the standard canon of literature taught in schools and is taught in over 70% of schools in the United States. A 1991 survey by the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Library of Congress' Center for the Book found that To Kill a Mockingbird was rated behind only the Bible in books that are "most often cited as making a difference."
Initial reviews varied from "skilled, unpretentious, and totally ingenious" to "melodramatic and contrived."[35] When it first appeared, The Atlantic Monthly's reviewer rated it as "pleasant, undemanding reading," but found the narrative voice, "a six-year-old girl with the prose style of a well-educated adult," to be implausible.Flannery O'Connor commented on the book when it was released, "I think for a child's book it does all right. It's interesting that all the folks that are buying it don't know they're reading a child's book. Somebody ought to say what it is." Time Magazine included To Kill a Mockingbird on its 100 Best English Novels from 1923 to the Present list in 2005. Their 1960 review of the book states that it, "teaches the reader an astonishing number of useful truths about little girls and about Southern life" and calls Scout Finch, "the most appealing child since Carson McCullers' Frankie got left behind at the wedding." Apparently Carson McCullers agreed, evidenced by what she wrote to a cousin: "Well, honey, one thing we know is that she's been poaching on my literary preserves." The Chicago Sunday Tribune noted the even-handed approach to the narration of the novel's events, noting that "This is in no way a sociological novel. It underlines no cause...To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel of strong contemporary national significance."
In 1999, it was voted the "Best Novel of the 20th century" by readers of the Library Journal. It is listed as #5 on the Modern Library's Reader's List of the 100 Best Novels in the English language since 1900,[84] and #4 on the rival Radcliffe Publishing Course's 100 Best Board Picks for Novels and Nonfiction.[85] To Kill a Mockingbird appeared first on a list developed by librarians in 2006 who answered the question, "Which book should every adult read before they die?" followed by the Bible and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Controversies
Challenges and bans
Along with the tremendous praise the novel has received, To Kill a Mockingbird has been a source of significant controversies. The book's use of racial slurs, profanity, and frank discussion of rape has led to it being challenged in libraries and classrooms across America. The American Library Association reported that To Kill a Mockingbird was #41 of the 100 most frequently challenged books of 1990–2000,citing several cases from that period and earlier of the book being challenged or banned. The controversy that has surrounded the book has not been limited to the United States. In the late 1990s, school districts in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada moved to have the book removed from standard teaching curricula, stating:
The terminology in this novel subjects students to humiliating experiences that rob them of their self-respect and the respect of their peers. The word 'Nigger' is used 48 times [in] the novel...We believe that the English Language Arts curriculum in Nova Scotia must enable all students to feel comfortable with ideas, feelings and experiences presented without fear of humiliation ... To Kill a Mockingbird is clearly a book that no longer meets these goals and therefore must no longer be used for classroom instruction."
Response to these attempts to remove the book from standard teaching was vehement across Canada and the United States, and many of the organizers were labeled as overly sensitive and "benign censors." Isaac Saney, who documented the attempt to ban the book, concluded that the media response to the effort to remove the books was a form of institutionalized racism. Of the efforts, he said, "The media's editorialising against all 'censorship' and 'banning' includes vigorous hostility to the censorship and banning of racism. Its advocacy of freedom of speech includes freedom of speech for racists and fascists."
A Canadian language arts consultant named Carol Ricker-Wilson noted a significant difference in the way the novel is received by white and black students. She found that the novel resonated well with white students, but that black students found it "demoralizing." A student who was playing Calpurnia in a school performance summed up her take on the story in saying, "It is from the white perspective, from a racist kind of view. You don't see much about the African American characters; you don't get to know them on a personal level...But it definitely has a [universal] message behind it. I know it's basically about racism but that's not all that you can get out of it."
Rumors of Capote's authorship
A blurb that appeared in the dust jacket of the first edition written by Truman Capote read, "Someone rare has written this very fine first novel: a writer with the liveliest sense of life, and the warmest, most authentic sense of humor. A touching book; and so funny, so likeable." This blurb, combined with the childhood friendship of Lee and Capote, helped fuel rumors that Capote had written or heavily edited the book. A Tuscaloosa newspaper reporter stated that Capote's biological father, Archulus Persons, had told him Capote had written "almost all" of the book.The rumors were put to rest in 2006 when a letter written by Capote to a neighbor in Monroeville in 1959, mentioned that Lee was writing a book that was to be published soon, was donated to Monroeville's literary heritage museum, paired with the evidence of the extensive notes to and from Lee's editor at Lippincott. Lee's older sister Alice has responded to the rumors in saying, "That's the biggest lie ever told."
After publication
Around 1964, Lee began to turn down interviews, noting that the questions were all the same. She still declines to speak to reporters about the book. She has also steadfastly refused to provide an introduction to the book, writing in 1995, "Introductions inhibit pleasure, they kill the joy of anticipation, they frustrate curiosity. The only good thing about Introductions is that in some cases they delay the dose to come. Mockingbird still says what it has to say; it has managed to survive the years without preamble."
In 2001, Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley initiated a city-wide reading program through the city's libraries, and chose his favorite book, To Kill a Mockingbird as the first book to be read in the "One City, One Book" program. Lee declared that "there is no greater honor the novel could receive." By 2004, the novel had been chosen by 25 different communities for variations of the one-book, one-community reading programs, more than any other novel.Lee was inducted into the Alabama Academy of Honor in 2001.In 2006, Lee was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Notre Dame. During the ceremony, the graduating class and audience gave Lee a standing ovation, and the entire graduating class held up copies of To Kill a Mockingbird to honor her.
Lee was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 5, 2007 by President George W. Bush. In his remarks, Bush stated, "One reason To Kill a Mockingbird succeeded is the wise and kind heart of the author, which comes through on every page...To Kill a Mockingbird has influenced the character of our country for the better. It's been a gift to the entire world. As a model of good writing and humane sensibility, this book will be read and studied forever."
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
Film's connection to the novel
The book was made into the well-received film with the same title, starring Gregory Peck in 1962. The film's producer, Alan J. Pakula, remembered Paramount Studios executives questioning him about a potential script, "They said, 'What story do you plan to tell for the film?' I said, 'Have you read the book?' They said, 'Yes.' I said, 'That's the story.'" Lee spent three weeks watching the 10-week filming of the movie, then "took off when she realized everything would be fine without her."] It won three Oscars, including Best Actor for Gregory Peck, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White, and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium for Horton Foote. It was nominated for five more Oscars that included Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Mary Badham, the actor who portrayed Scout, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White, Best Director, Best Music, Score - Substantially Original, and Best Picture. Harper Lee was apparently pleased with the film version of the novel. She was quoted saying, "In that film the man and the part met...I've had many, many offers to turn it into musicals, into TV or stage plays, but I've always refused. That film was a work of art."
Gregory Peck's performance became synonymous with the role and character of Atticus Finch. Alan Pakula remembered hearing from Peck when he was first approached with the role, "He called back immediately. No maybes. The fit was among the most natural things about a most natural film. I must say the man and the character he played were not unalike. Peck later said in an interview that he was drawn to the role because the book reminded him of growing up in La Jolla, California. "Hardly a day passes that I don't think how lucky I was to be cast in that film," Peck said in a 1997 interview. "I recently sat at a dinner next to a woman who saw it when she was 14 years old, and she said it changed her life. I hear things like that all the time." Peck met Lee's father, the model for Atticus, prior to the filming. Lee's father died before the film's release, and Lee was so impressed with Peck's performance that she gave him her father's pocketwatch, which he had with him the evening he was awarded the Oscar for best actor.Years later, he was reluctant to tell Lee that the watch was stolen out of his luggage in Heathrow Airport. When Peck eventually did tell Lee, he said she responded, "'Well, it's only a watch.' Harper - she feels deeply, but she's not a sentimental person about things. Lee and Peck shared a friendship long after the movie was made. Peck's grandson was named "Harper" for Lee.
Upon Peck's death in 2003, Brock Peters, who played Tom Robinson in the film version, quoted Harper Lee at Peck's eulogy, saying, "Atticus Finch gave him an opportunity to play himself." Peters concluded his eulogy stating, "To my friend Gregory Peck, to my friend Atticus Finch, vaya con Dios." Peters remembered the role of Tom Robinson when he recalled, "It certainly is one of my proudest achievements in life, one of the happiest participations in film or theater I have experienced." Peters remained friends not only with Peck but with Mary Badham throughout his life.
In May of 2005, Lee made a very uncharacteristic appearance at the Los Angeles Public Library for an event to honor Lee hosted by Peck's wife Veronique, who said of Lee, "She's like a national treasure. She's someone who has made a difference...with this book. The book is still as strong as it ever was, and so is the film. All the kids in the United States read this book and see the film in the seventh and eighth grades and write papers and essays. My husband used to get thousands and thousands of letters from teachers who would send them to him." Brock Peters also attended the affair, just months before his own death.
Play's connection to the town
The book has also been adapted as a play by Christopher Sergel. It debuted in 1990 in Monroeville, a town that labels itself "The Literary Capital of Alabama." The play runs every May on the county courthouse grounds and townspeople make up the cast. White male audience members are chosen at the intermission to make up the jury. During the courtroom scene, where the audience and cast moves inside the Monroe County Courthouse, the audience is racially segregated. Author Albert Murray said of the relationship of the town to the novel (therefore the annual performance of the play), "It becomes part of the town ritual, like the religious underpinning of Mardi Gras. With the whole town crowded around the actual courthouse, it's part of a central, civic education - what Monroeville aspires to be." A National Geographic article claimed the novel is revered so much in Monroeville that people quote lines from it like Scripture, but that Harper Lee has refused to attend any performances; that, "she abhors anything that trades on the book's fame." To underscore this sentiment, Lee demanded a book of recipes named "Calpurnia's Cookbook" not be published and sold out of the Monroe County Heritage Museum. Tourism by people hoping to see Lee's inspiration for the book, or Lee herself, has risen despite her discouragement of it. Local Monroeville residents call them "Mockingbird groupies," and although Lee is not reclusive, she refuses any publicity or interviews with an emphatic, "Hell no."
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