To Kill a Mockingbird

For the film, see To Kill a Mockingbird (film).

To Kill a Mockingbird

File:Mockingbirdfirst.JPG First edition cover - Late printing
Author	Harper Lee
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Southern Gothic semi-autobiographical novel
Publisher	HarperCollins
Publication date	July 11, 1960
Media type	Print (Hardback and Paperback)
Pages	296 (first edition, hardback)
ISBN	NA

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 was 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.

The novel is renowned for its use of warmth and humor in dealing with the serious issues of rape and racial inequality. 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."

The primary themes of To Kill a Mockingbird involve racial injustice and the destruction of innocence, but scholars have also noted that Lee addressed the themes of class differences, courage and compassion, and gender roles in the Deep South. It is widely taught in schools in English-speaking countries with lessons that tie into tolerance and prejudice. However, despite its themes, 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, and writers have noticed the different reactions black and white readers have to the book.

Lee's novel was reviewed by at least 30 different newspapers and magazines, that varied widely in their treatment of the book. More recently, has been ranked by librarians along with the Bible on lists of books of importance. 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, and though she continues to respond to the book's impact, she has refused any publicity for the novel since 1964.

Background and composition

While working in New York City as a reservation clerk for British Overseas Airways Corporation, Harper Lee had a collection of several essays and short stories she had written about people in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. In 1957, Lee approached a literary agent referred by her childhood friend Truman Capote with her writing, hoping to be published. An editor at J. B. Lippincott advised her to quit the airline and concentrate on writing, and donations from friends made it possible for her to write for a year without working a full-time job.

Harper Lee had only published small opinion pieces in campus literary magazines in 1957. While attending college, she wrote for campus literary magazines: Huntress at Huntingdon College and a humor magazine called Rammer Jammer at the University of Alabama. At both schools, she wrote short stories and pieces about racial injustice, rare topics on these campuses at the time. After moving to New York City, Lee spent two and a half years writing To Kill a Mockingbird, initially titling it Atticus. Later she changed the title to reflect a story that went beyond a simple character portrait. A description of the book's creation by the National Endowment for the Arts relates an episode wherein Lee became so frustrated that she tossed the manuscript out the window into the snow. Her agent made her retrieve it from the street.

The editorial team at Lippincott warned Lee that she would probably sell only several thousand copies at the most. 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." Instead of a "quick and merciful death", the book was republished in part by Reader's Digest and Condensed Books, which gave it an immediate wide readership.

Plot summary

See also: List of characters in To Kill a Mockingbird

The story takes place during three years of the Great Depression in the fictional "tired old town" of Maycomb, Alabama. The narrator, six-year-old Scout Finch, lives with her older brother Jem and their widowed father Atticus, a middle-aged lawyer. Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill who visits Maycomb to stay with his Aunt Rachel for the summer. The three children are terrified by, and fascinated with, a neighbor named "Boo" Radley, a mysterious recluse. The adults of Maycomb are hesitant to talk about Radley and for many years, few have seen him. The children feed each other's imaginations with rampant rumors about his grotesque appearance and his reasons for remaining a recluse, while they dream of ways to get him to emerge from his house. Following two summers of friendship with Dill, Scout and Jem find that someone is leaving them small gifts in a tree outside the Radley place, on their way to school. Several times, the phantom Boo appears to the children, and displays gestures of affection.

Atticus is assigned to defend a black man named Tom Robinson, who has been accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a young white woman. Although many of Maycomb's citizens disapprove, Atticus agrees to defend Tom's innocence 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 stand up for her father's honor by fighting them, even though he has told her not to. For his part, Atticus faces a group of men intending to lynch Tom, but this danger is averted when Scout, Jem, and Dill force the mob to view the situation from Atticus' and Tom's point of view.

Because Atticus does not want them to be present at Tom Robinson's trial, Scout, Jem and Dill watch in secret from the colored balcony. Atticus establishes that the accusers, Mayella Ewell and her father, the town drunk Bob Ewell, are lying. It also becomes clear that the friendless Mayella was making sexual advances towards Tom and that her father caught her in the act. Despite 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 is 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's face on the street. Finally, he attacks the defenseless Jem and Scout as they walk home from a Halloween pageant at their school. Jem's arm is broken in the struggle, but someone arrives in the confusion 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

File:Tokill01.jpg

Atticus Finch (played in the 1962 movie by Gregory Peck) shares many characteristics with Lee's father.

Lee has said that the novel is not an autobiography, but an example of how the author "should write about what he knows and write truthfully." Nevertheless, numerous similarities exist between her childhood and Scout's life. Lee's father, Amasa Coleman Lee, was an attorney and editor and publisher of the Monroeville newspaper. As an inexperienced lawyer, he defended two black men accused of murder in 1919; they were convicted, hanged, and mutilated. He never tried another criminal case. While her father was more conservative than Atticus with regard to race, he gradually became more liberal in his later years. Lee's mother lived until 1951, in contrast to Scout's mother, who died when Scout was a baby. Still, Lee's mother was prone to a nervous condition and, although physically present, was mentally and emotionally absent.

Lee also had a brother named Edwin, who – like Jem – was four years older than his sister. As in the novel, a black housekeeper came once a day to care for the Lee house and family. The character of Dill, furthermore, was modeled on Capote, known at the time as Truman Persons. Just as Dill lived next door to Scout during the summer, Capote lived next door to Lee with his aunts while his mother visited New York City. Like Dill, Capote had an impressive imagination and a gift for fascinating stories. Both Lee and Capote were atypical children: both loved to read, and whereas Lee was a scrappy tomboy who was quick to fight, Capote was the object of ridicule for his advanced vocabulary and lisp. She and Capote made up and acted out stories they wrote on an old Underwood typewriter Lee's father gave them. Although they became very good friends, 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 out of shame. He was hidden until virtually forgotten by everyone he knew, and died in 1952. The origin of Tom Robinson is less clear, though many have speculated on its inspiration. 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, and Lett was convicted and sentenced to death. After a series of letters appeared claiming Lett had been falsely accused, his sentence was 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, nine black men who were 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, is also considered a model for Tom Robinson. Historians point to Till's murder, trial, and the media coverage of both as a catalyst for the United States Civil Rights Movement. Despite the similarities, Lee stated in 2005 with regard to the Scottsboro Boys that she had in mind something less sensational, although the case served the same purpose in displaying Southern attitudes about prejudice.

Style

Lee combines the child's voice as narrator with the grown woman reflecting on her childhood. At times the blending is sublime enough to cause reviewers to question Scout's preternatural vocabulary and depth of understanding. Writing about Lee's style and use of humor in a tragic story, Jacqueline Tavernier-Courbin states: "To Kill a Mockingbird is one of those rare books that exposes 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 role 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 used most effectively in the children's comprehension of complex traditions. After Dill promises to marry her, then spends too much time with Jem, Scout reasons the best way to get him to pay attention to her is to beat him up, which she does several times. Scout's first day in school describes a frustrating experience where her teacher tells her she must undo what Atticus has taught her already since Scout already knows how to read and write. Scout tries to converse with Mr. Cunningham about his "entailment", after he arrives to lynch Tom Robinson. However, Lee treats the most unfunny situations 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.

Critics also note the entertaining methods used to drive the plot. 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. This 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 Halloween pageant comes about when the furniture of two spinsters is 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 notes about criticism 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 remarks 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 notes that even in Scout and Jem's childhood world, compromises and treaties are struck with each other by spitting on one's palm, and laws are discussed by Atticus and his children: is it right that Bob Ewell hunts and traps out of season? 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; 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. 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, "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."

Atticus' impact on the legal profession

File:In Search of Atticus Finch book.jpg

Atticus has inspired many tributes, including this 1996 inspirational book for attorneys titled In Search of Atticus Finch: A Motivational Book for Lawyers

The character of Atticus Finch has impacted the legal profession throughout the U.S. Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center cites Atticus Finch as the reason he became a lawyer, and Richard Matsch, the federal judge who presided over the Timothy McVeigh trial, counts Atticus as a major judicial influence. One law professor at the University of Notre Dame stated that the most influential textbook he taught from was To Kill a Mockingbird, and an article in the Michigan Law Review claimed, "No real-life lawyer has done more for the self-image or public perception of the legal profession," before questioning whether, "Atticus Finch is a paragon of honor or an especially slick hired gun."

In 1992, an Alabama editorial called for the death of Atticus, saying that as liberal as Atticus was, he still worked within a system of institutionalized racism and sexism and should not be revered. The editorial sparked a flurry of responses from attorneys who entered the profession holding Atticus Finch as a hero, and the reason they became lawyers. Critics of Atticus maintain he is morally ambiguous and does not use his legal skills to challenge the racist status quo in Maycomb. However, in 1997, the Alabama Bar Association erected a monument dedicated to Atticus in Monroeville marking his existence as the "first commemorative milestone in the state's judicial history."

Lee described Atticus in a 1991 interview as "a man of absolute integrity with as much good will and good humor as he is just and humane." Praise for the character is tremendous, describing him as having "Christ-like goodness and wisdom" He is likened to the "Abe Lincoln of Alabama," Emersonian in his wisdom, and a modern-day prophet.

Genres

Because of its multiple themes, scholars have characterized the novel as both a Southern Gothic and a bildungsroman. Southern Gothic applies to the novel in Lee's use of the grotesque and near-supernatural qualities of Boo Radley and his house, and the element of racial injustice involving Tom Robinson. Lee used the term "Gothic" to describe Maycomb's courthouse's architecture, and again with regard to Dill's exaggeratedly morbid performances as Boo Radley. The importance of outsiders is also highlighted as characteristic of the Southern Gothic. One author notes that Lee takes on every establishment of authority in Maycomb: the school and its teachers, the criminal justice system, and the religious establishments. Yet Scout still reveres 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, writers debate about the Southern Gothic classification, noting that Boo Radley is in fact human, protective, and benevolent. Lee, furthermore, wrote about her small town with an admirable realism in addressing themes of Mrs. Dubose's drug addiction, Bob Ewell's alcoholism, allusions to Mayella Ewell's incest, rape, racial violence, and Tom Robinson's "suicidal despair" as universal underlying issues in an orderly society, instead of focusing on her characters' extreme qualities to create a surreal setting.

The presence of children facing a cruel world leads critics to cite the novel less as an example of Southern Gothic, and more as a bildungsroman. The latter typically features a character discontented by witnessing a shocking event, who develops through the novel to make sense of the event. In the case of To Kill a Mockingbird, both Scout and Jem exist in this role. Lee seems to examine Jem's sense of loss about how his neighbors have disappointed him more than Scout's. As Jem says to Miss Maudie the day after the trial, "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". This leads him to struggle with understanding the separations of 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 on the verge of womanhood. Scout's coming of age justifies the categorization of this genre when one scholar writes, "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."

Themes

Despite the novel's immense popularity upon publication (it was reviewed by at least 30 newspapers and magazines), it has not received the close critical attention paid to other modern American classics. Claudia Durst Johnson, author of several books and articles about To Kill a Mockingbird, wrote in 1994: "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." Another writer agreed when he wrote that the book is "an icon whose emotive sway remains strangely powerful because it also remains unexamined".

Southern life and racial injustice

One of the first motifs studied in To Kill a Mockingbird is the complexity of life seen through the eyes of children. This method allows Lee 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 about Lee's ability to connect them. The first part of the novel concerns the children's fascination with Boo Radley and their feelings of safety and comfort in the neighborhood. Reviewers were generally charmed by Scout and Jem's observations of their quirky neighbors. One writer was so impressed by Lee's detailed explanations of the people of Maycomb that he named Southern romanticism as the book's major theme. This can be seen in Lee's representation of the Southern caste system to explain almost every character's behavior in the novel. For example, Aunt Alexandra explains Maycomb's inhabitants' faults and advantages through genealogy (families that have gambling streaks and drinking streaks, for example), while Lee herself describes the Finch family history and the history of Maycomb. This theme is further reflected in Mayella Ewell's apparent powerlessness to admit to what she did, and Atticus's definition of "fine folks" being people with good sense who do the best they can with what they have. The South itself, with its traditions and taboos, seems to affect the plot more than the characters or the action.

The second part deals with what Harding LeMay termed "the spirit-corroding shame of the civilized white Southerner in the treatment of the Negro". In the years following 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.

The trial of Tom Robinson, portrayed here by Brock Peters from the 1962 film, is the pivotal action in the book, and the theme of racial justice is seen by many scholars as the most significant theme.

Claudia Durst Johnson considers it "reasonable to believe" that the novel was shaped by two 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 at 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 remark, "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 that many studies 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.

As Johnson notes, the book has inflamed passionate emotions with regard to race relations. It has been challenged in schools and libraries since its publication, one of the first incidents being in Hanover, Virginia in 1966 for being immoral, when a parent protested the use of rape as a plot device. Johnson cites examples of letters to local newspapers, which ranged from amusement to fury; those letters expressing the most outrage complained about the racial aspects of Mayella Ewell's attraction to Tom Robinson, even over the depictions of rape. Upon learning the school administrators were holding hearings to decide the book's appropriateness in a classroom, 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".

Another scholar makes 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 claims the dog represents prejudice within the town of Maycomb, and Atticus, who waits on a deserted street to shoot the dog, must also fight against the town's racism without help from other white citizens. He is also alone when he faces a group intending to lynch Tom Robinson, 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 writes, "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."

Despite its influence and impact on race relations for white readers, however, the novel has a different reception by black readers. The black characters in the novel are rarely explored as fully as the white characters. Furthermore, 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 all marginalize black characters. Roslyn Siegel includes Tom Robinson as an example of the recurring motif among writers in the Southern U.S. of the black man as "stupid, pathetic, defenseless, and dependent upon the fair dealing of the whites, rather than his own intelligence to save him". Scout as a child narrator allows a detached description of a story about racial conflict when it does not affect her directly. One writer asserts 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." One writer confirms this analogy by comparing Lee's novel with Austen's class analysis to determine Lee's inspiration for elements in To Kill a Mockingbird. Lee and Austen wrote about different classes: Lee of the middle class Finch family and their neighbors who were poor during the Great Depression; the Ewells and Cunninghams, representing lower-class whites; and blacks, who were by social situation in the lowest class. Blackall points 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; 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. Calpurnia demonstrates "the command of two languages", speaking improper English while with her church congregation, then explaining to Scout that she does so to keep them from feeling lower than she. Themes shared by Lee and Austen are summarized by Jean Blackall who lists the priorities common between them: "affirmation of order in society, obedience, courtesy, and respect for the individual without regard for status".

Scholars note that 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." Lee's use of middle class voice is identified in her narration as a literary device that allows an intimacy with the reader, regardless of class or cultural background, which fosters a sense of nostalgia. This occurs when Scout and Jem observe and enter relationships with many different classes of people. The reader is therefore 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. The children internalize Atticus's admonition not to judge someone until they've walked around in that person's skin, gaining a greater understanding of people's motives and behavior.

Courage and compassion

The novel explores courage in several ways. Scout, Jem, and Dill's dramatization of Boo Radley's life story, and challenges to each other to touch his porch are attempts to summon their courage in the face of the man's mysterious presence. Scout's impulsive inclination to fight students who insult Atticus reflects her attempt 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. In 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".

Atticus's 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" is the primary example of his compassion. She ponders the comment while listening to Mayella Ewell's testimony. When Mayella reacts with confusion to Atticus's question if she has any friends, Scout offers that she must be lonelier than Boo Radley. The statement that analyst Susan Jolley felt seemed to make the most negative impact in Tom Robinson's testimony was that he felt sorry for Mayella. Having walked Boo home after he saves their lives, Scout stands on the Radley porch and considers the events of the past three years the way Boo must have witnessed them. Jolley remarks, "[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

Just as Lee explores Jem's development in coming to grips with an overtly racist and unjust society, Scout realizes what being female means, and several female characters influence her development. 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 simultaneously 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. Mayella Ewell also has an influence; Scout watches her destroy an innocent man to hide her own desire for him. Writer Michelle Ware summarizes the feminist sensibility in To Kill a Mockingbird by 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 are another noted theme in the novel. Scout and Jem's mother died before Scout could remember her. Two mothers who could have protected their children are likewise notable in their absence: Mayella's mother is dead, and Mrs. Radley died before Boo was confined to the house. Apart from Atticus, the fathers described are abusers. Bob Ewell, it is hinted, molested his daughter. Mr. Radley takes his son home from court and imprisons him in the house 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 represent traditional masculinity opposing Atticus who does not, it is suggested that men like Mr. Radley and Ewell as well as the traditionally feminine hypocrites at the Missionary Society can lead society astray. Atticus's nature stands apart from other men in the novel as a unique 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."

The female characters who comment the most on Scout's lack of willingness to adhere to a more feminine role are also those who promote 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. Aunt Alexandra likewise calls Scout a burden on her father, although Atticus disagrees. Mrs. Dubose insults Atticus's intentions to defend Tom Robinson, although only to his children and not apparently to his face. Aunt Alexandra tries to negate Atticus's lesson about judging people when she declares the Cunninghams to be "trash". By balancing the masculine influences of Atticus and Jem with the feminine influences of Calpurnia and Miss Maudie, one scholar writes, "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

Lee used the mockingbird to symbolize innocence in the novel.

Songbirds – particularly the titular mockingbird – appear 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, and fit fully with the motif of symbolic songbirds. The title of the book is a central illustration of this theme. Atticus, having given his children air-rifles for Christmas, allows their Uncle Jack to teach them about shooting. 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". Confused, Scout approaches her neighbor Miss Maudie Atkinson, who explains that mockingbirds never harm other living creatures. 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 summarized 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 have 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 given the many appearances of mockingbirds, Tom becomes one of many innocents affected by carelessness. Christopher Metress notes 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."

The novel exposes the loss of innocence (and innocents) so frequently that reviewer R. A. Dave claims it is inevitable that all the characters have faced or will face defeat, making it a classical 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 guides the reader in such judgments, alternating between unabashed adoration and biting irony.

Harper Lee has remained famously detached from interpreting the novel since the mid 1960s. However, she gave some insight into her themes 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."

Reception

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Mass market paperback front cover of the novel, available in the 1980s and 1990s

Despite initial warnings Lee received from her editors that it might sell poorly, To Kill a Mockingbird was a sensation, and quickly made Lee both famous and wealthy. The novel was well-received in her hometown of Monroeville and throughout Alabama. During the years immediately after publication, Lee enjoyed the attention, granting interviews, visiting schools and attending events. The novel became widely available through its inclusion in the Book of the Month Club, and editions released by Reader's Digest and Condensed Books. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1961, and the Brotherhood Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews in the same year.

One year after being published, To Kill a Mockingbird had been translated into ten languages; in the years since, it has sold over 30 million copies and been translated into over 40 languages. To Kill a Mockingbird has never been out of print in hardcover or paperback, and has become part of the standard literature curriculum 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", and has appeared on numerous other lists that describe its impact.

When the novel first appeared, reactions were varied. The New Yorker declared it "skilled, unpretentious, and totally ingenious", and 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. Time Magazine included To Kill a Mockingbird on its 2005 list of 100 Best English Novels from 1923 to the Present. 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". 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."

Not all comments were enthusiastic, however. Some editorials lamented the use of poor white Southerners, and one-dimensional black victims, Granville Hicks labeled the book "melodramatic and contrived". 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." Carson McCullers apparently agreed with the Time magazine review, as she wrote to a cousin: "Well, honey, one thing we know is that she's been poaching on my literary preserves."

Controversy

Challenges and bans

Along with tremendous praise, To Kill a Mockingbird has been a source of significant controversy. The book's use of racial slurs, profanity, and frank discussion of rape has led communities to challenge it 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, 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 attempted 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 passionate across Canada and the United States, and many of the organizers were labeled as overly sensitive and "benign censors." Isaac Saney, who documents and supports the attempts to ban the book, concludes that the media response to the removal effort was a form of institutionalized racism: "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 notes 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 played Calpurnia in a school performance summed up her take by 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 from Truman Capote in the dust jacket of the first edition 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 comment, 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 was donated to Monroeville's literary heritage museum. It was written by Capote to a neighbor in Monroeville in 1959 and mentioned that Lee was writing a book that was to be published soon. Extensive notes to and from Lee's editor at Lippincott also refute the notion of Capote's authorship. Lee's older sister Alice has responded to the rumor, saying "That's the biggest lie ever told."

Honors

Starting in 1964, Lee began to turn down interviews, complaining of monotonous questioning. She has declined ever since to talk with reporters about the book. She has also steadfastly refused to provide an introduction, 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."

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Harper Lee and President George W. Bush at the November 5, 2007 ceremony awarding Lee the Presidential Medal of Freedom for To Kill a Mockingbird.

In 2001, Lee was inducted into the Alabama Academy of Honor. In the same year, 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 title of 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 citywide reading program, more than any other novel.

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."

Adaptations

1962 film

Film producer Alan J. Pakula with Lee watching the filming

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." Harper Lee was pleased with the movie, 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."

The movie 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 including Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Mary Badham, the actor who portrayed Scout.

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" in her honor.

In May 2005, Lee made an uncharacteristic appearance at the Los Angeles Public Library for an event in her honor. It was 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."

Play

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 production moves into the Monroe County Courthouse, the audience is racially segregated. Author Albert Murray said of the relationship of the town to the novel (and the annual performance), "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 claims the novel is so revered in Monroeville that people quote lines from it like Scripture, but also 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, today she refuses any publicity or interviews with an emphatic "Hell no".

See also

• Southern literature
• To Kill a Mockingbird in popular culture

Bibliography

• Johnson, Claudia. To Kill a Mockingbird: Threatening Boundaries. Twayne Publishers, New York: 1994. ISBN 0805780688
• Johnson, Claudia. Understanding To Kill a Mockingbird: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historic Documents. Greenwood Press, 1994. ISBN 0313291934
• Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. HarperCollins, 1960 (Perennial Classics edition, 2002). ISBN 0060935464
• Petry Alice. Introduction. In On Harper Lee. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville: 1994 ISBN 1572335785.
• Shields, Charles. Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee. Henry Holt and Co.; 2006. ISBN 080507919X

External links

• Study resource for writing about To Kill a Mockingbird
• Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles J. Shields, 2006
• Photos of the first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird
• NovelGuide: To Kill a Mockingbird