To Kill a Mockingbird
To
Kill a Mockingbird is a
novel by Harper Lee
published in 1960. Instantly successful, widely read in high schools and middle
schools in the United States, it has become a classic of modern American literature,
winning the Pulitzer Prize.
The plot and characters are loosely based on Lee's observations of her family,
her neighbors and an event that occurred near her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, in 1936, when she was ten.
Despite
dealing with the serious issues of rape and racial inequality, the novel is renowned for its warmth and humor. Atticus
Finch, the narrator's father, has served
as a moral hero for many readers and as a model of integrity for lawyers. The
historian J. Crespino explains, "In the twentieth century, To Kill a
Mockingbird is probably the most widely read book dealing with race in
America, and its main character, Atticus Finch, the most enduring fictional
image of racial heroism."[1]
As
a Southern Gothic
and Bildungsroman
novel, the primary themes of To Kill a Mockingbird involve racial
injustice and the destruction of innocence. Scholars have noted that Lee also
addresses issues of class, courage, compassion, and gender roles in the Deep
South. The book is widely taught in
schools in the United States with lessons that emphasize tolerance and decry
prejudice. Despite its themes, To Kill a Mockingbird has been subject to
campaigns for removal from public classrooms, often challenged
for its use of racial epithets.
Reaction
to the novel varied widely upon publication. Despite the number of copies sold
and its widespread use in education, literary analysis of it is sparse. Author
Mary McDonough Murphy, who collected individual impressions of To Kill a
Mockingbird by several authors and public figures, calls the book "an
astonishing phenomenon".[2] In 2006, British librarians ranked the book ahead of the Bible as one "every adult should read before they die".[3] It was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film in 1962 by director Robert
Mulligan, with a screenplay by Horton
Foote. Since 1990, a play based on the novel
has been performed annually in Harper Lee's hometown.
To
Kill a Mockingbird was Lee's only published book until
Go Set a Watchman, an earlier draft of To Kill a Mockingbird, was published on July 14,
2015. Lee continued to respond to her work's impact until her death in February
2016, although she had refused any personal publicity for herself or the novel
since 1964.
Biographical background and publication
Born
in 1926, Harper Lee
grew up in the Southern town of Monroeville, Alabama, where she became close friends with soon-to-be-famous
writer Truman Capote.
She attended Huntingdon College
in Montgomery
(1944–45), and then studied law at the University of Alabama (1945–49). While attending college, she wrote for campus
literary magazines: Huntress at Huntingdon and the humor magazine Rammer
Jammer at the University of Alabama. At both colleges, she wrote short
stories and other works about racial injustice, a rarely mentioned topic on
such campuses at the time.[4] In 1950, Lee moved to New York City, where she worked as a
reservation clerk for British Overseas
Airways Corporation; there, she began writing a
collection of essays and short stories about people in Monroeville. Hoping to
be published, Lee presented her writing in 1957 to a literary
agent recommended by Capote. An editor at
J. B. Lippincott, who bought the manuscript, advised her to quit the airline
and concentrate on writing.
Donations
from friends allowed her to write uninterruptedly for a year.[5] After finishing the first draft and returning it to
Lippincott, the manuscript, at that point titled "Go Set a Watchman",[6] fell into the hands of Therese von Hohoff Torrey, known
professionally as Tay Hohoff.
Hohoff was impressed, "[T]he spark of the true writer flashed in every
line," she would later recount in a corporate history of Lippincott,[6] but as Hohoff saw it, the manuscript was by no means fit
for publication. It was, as she described it, "more a series of anecdotes
than a fully conceived novel." During the following two and a half years,
she led Lee from one draft to the next until the book finally achieved its
finished form.[6]
After
the "Watchman" title was rejected, it was re-titled Atticus
but Lee renamed it To Kill a Mockingbird to reflect that the story went
beyond a character portrait. The book was published on July 11, 1960.[7] The editorial team at Lippincott warned Lee that she would
probably sell only several thousand copies.[8] 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.[9]
Instead
of a "quick and merciful death", Reader's Digest
Condensed Books chose the book for reprinting in
part, which gave it a wide readership immediately.[10] Since the original publication, the book has never been out
of print.[11]
Plot summary
See also: List of To Kill a
Mockingbird characters
The
story, told by the six-year-old Jean Louise Finch, takes place during three
years (1933–35) of the Great
Depression in the fictional "tired old
town" of Maycomb, Alabama, the seat of Maycomb County. Jean Louise Finch,
nicknamed Scout, lives with her older brother Jeremy, nicknamed 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 each summer. The three
children are terrified, yet fascinated by their neighbor, the reclusive Arthur "Boo" Radley. The adults of Maycomb are
hesitant to talk about Boo, and few of them have seen him for many years. The
children feed one another's imagination with rumors about his appearance and
reasons for remaining hidden, and they fantasize about how to get him out of
his house. After two summers of friendship with Dill, Scout and Jem find that
someone is leaving them small gifts in a tree outside the Radley place. Several
times the mysterious Boo makes gestures of affection to the children, but, to
their disappointment, he never appears in person.
Judge
Taylor appoints Atticus to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who has been
accused of raping a young white woman, Mayella Ewell. Although many of
Maycomb's citizens disapprove, Atticus agrees to defend Tom to the best of his
ability. Other children taunt Jem and Scout for Atticus's actions, calling him
a "nigger-lover". Scout is tempted to stand up for her father's
honor by fighting, even though he has told her not to. One night, Atticus faces
a group of men intent on lynching Tom. This crisis is averted in an unexpected
manner: Scout, Jem, and Dill show up, and Scout inadvertently breaks the mob
mentality by recognizing and talking to a
classmate's father, and the would-be lynchers disperse.
Atticus
does not want Jem and Scout to be present at Tom Robinson's trial. No seat is
available on the main floor, but the Rev. Sykes invites Jem, Scout, and Dill to
watch from the colored balcony. Atticus establishes that Mayella and Bob Ewell are lying.
It is revealed that Mayella made sexual advances toward Tom, subsequently
resulting in her being beaten by her father. The townspeople refer to the Ewells
as "white trash"
who are not to be trusted, but the jury convicts Tom regardless. Jem's faith in
justice is badly shaken. Atticus is hopeful that he can get the verdict
overturned, but Tom is shot and killed while trying to escape from prison.
Despite
Tom's conviction, Bob Ewell is humiliated by the events of the trial, Atticus
explaining that he "destroyed [Ewell's] last shred of credibility at that
trial."[12] Ewell vows revenge, spitting in Atticus' face, trying to
break into the judge's house and menacing Tom Robinson's widow. Finally, he
attacks Jem and Scout while they are walking home on a dark night after the
school Halloween
pageant. Jem suffers a broken arm in the struggle, but amid the confusion,
someone comes to the children's rescue. The mysterious man carries Jem home,
where Scout realizes that he is Boo Radley.
Sheriff
Tate arrives and discovers Ewell dead from a knife wound. Atticus believes that
Jem was responsible, but Tate is certain it was Boo. The sheriff decides that,
to protect Boo's privacy, he will report that Ewell simply fell on his own
knife during the attack. Boo asks Scout to walk him home. After she says
goodbye to him at his front door, he disappears, never to be seen again by
Scout. While standing on the Radley porch, Scout imagines life from Boo's perspective.
Autobiographical elements
Lee
said that To Kill a Mockingbird is not an autobiography, but rather an example of how an author "should write
about what he knows and write truthfully".[13] Nevertheless, several people and events from Lee's
childhood parallel those of the fictional Scout. Lee's father, Amasa Coleman
Lee, was an attorney, similar to Atticus Finch, and in 1919, he defended two
black men accused of murder. After they were convicted, hanged and mutilated,[14] he never tried another criminal case. Lee's father was also
the editor and publisher of the Monroeville newspaper. Although more of a
proponent of racial segregation than Atticus, he gradually became more liberal
in his later years.[15] Though Scout's mother died when she was a baby, Lee was 25
when her mother, Frances Cunningham Finch, died. Lee's mother was prone to a nervous
condition that rendered her mentally and
emotionally absent.[16] Lee's older brother Edwin was the inspiration for Jem.
Lee
modeled the character of Dill on Truman
Capote, her childhood friend known then as
Truman Persons.[17][18] 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.[19] Like Dill, Capote had an impressive imagination and a gift
for fascinating stories. Both Lee and Capote loved to read, and were atypical
children in some ways: Lee was a scrappy tomboy who was quick to fight, and Capote was ridiculed for his
advanced vocabulary and lisp. She and Capote made up and acted out stories they
wrote on an old Underwood typewriter that Lee's father gave them. They became good
friends when both felt alienated from their peers; Capote called the two of
them "apart people".[20] In 1960, Capote and Lee traveled to Kansas together to
investigate the multiple murders that were the basis for Capote's nonfiction
novel In
Cold Blood.[21]
Down
the street from the Lees lived a family whose house was always boarded up; they
served as the models for the fictional 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; he died in 1952.[22]
The
origin of Tom Robinson is less clear, although many have speculated that his
character was inspired by several models. 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, which
reported that 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. He died there of tuberculosis in 1937.[23] Scholars believe that Robinson's difficulties reflect the
notorious case of the Scottsboro
Boys,[24][25] in which nine black men were convicted of raping two white
women on negligible evidence. However, in 2005, Lee stated that she had in mind
something less sensational, although the Scottsboro case served "the same
purpose" to display Southern prejudices.[26] Emmett Till,
a black teenager who was murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman in Mississippi in 1955, and whose death is credited as a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement, is also considered a model for Tom.[27]
Style
The
narrative is very tough, because [Lee] has to both be a kid on the street and
aware of the mad dogs and the spooky houses and have this beautiful vision of
how justice works and all the creaking mechanisms of the courthouse. Part of
the beauty is that she... trusts the visual to lead her, and the sensory.
The
strongest element of style noted by critics and reviewers is Lee's talent for
narration, which in an early review in Time was called "tactile brilliance".[29] Writing a decade later, another scholar noted, "Harper
Lee has a remarkable gift of story-telling. Her art is visual, and with
cinematographic fluidity and subtlety we see a scene melting into another scene
without jolts of transition."[30] Lee combines the narrator's voice of a child observing her
surroundings with a grown woman's reflecting on her childhood, using the
ambiguity of this voice combined with the narrative technique of flashback to
play intricately with perspectives.[31] This narrative 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.[32] However, at times the blending causes reviewers to question
Scout's preternatural vocabulary and depth of understanding.[33] Both Harding LeMay and the novelist and literary critic 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.[34][35]
Writing
about Lee's style and use of humor in a tragic story, scholar Jacqueline
Tavernier-Courbin states: "Laughter ... [exposes] the gangrene under
the beautiful surface but also by demeaning it; one can hardly ... be
controlled by what one is able to laugh at."[36] Scout's precocious observations about her neighbors and
behavior inspired National Endowment of the Arts director David Kipen to call her
"hysterically funny".[37] To address complex issues, however, Tavernier-Courbin notes
that Lee uses parody,
satire, and irony
effectively by using a child's perspective. 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.[38] Scout's first day in school is a satirical treatment of
education; her teacher says she must undo the damage Atticus has wrought in
teaching her to read and write, and forbids Atticus from teaching her further.[39] Lee treats the most unfunny situations with irony, however,
as Jem and Scout try to understand how Maycomb embraces racism and still tries
sincerely to remain a decent society. Satire and irony are used to such an
extent that Tavernier-Courbin suggests one interpretation for the book's title:
Lee is doing the mocking—of education, the justice system, and her own
society—by using them as subjects of her humorous disapproval.[36]
Critics
also note the entertaining methods used to drive the plot.[40] When Atticus is out of town, Jem locks a Sunday
school classmate in the church basement
with the furnace during a game of Shadrach. This prompts their black housekeeper Calpurnia to escort
Scout and Jem to her church, which allows the children a glimpse into her
personal life, as well as Tom Robinson's.[41] Scout falls asleep during the Halloween pageant and makes a
tardy entrance onstage, causing the audience to laugh uproariously. She is so
distracted and embarrassed that she prefers to go home in her ham costume,
which saves her life.[42]
Genres
Scholars
have characterized To Kill a Mockingbird as both a Southern
Gothic and a Bildungsroman. The grotesque and near-supernatural qualities of Boo
Radley and his house, and the element of racial injustice involving Tom
Robinson, contribute to the aura of the Gothic in the novel.[43][44] Lee used the term "Gothic" to describe the architecture
of Maycomb's courthouse and in regard to Dill's exaggeratedly morbid
performances as Boo Radley.[45] Outsiders are also an important element of Southern Gothic
texts and Scout and Jem's questions about the hierarchy in the town cause
scholars to compare the novel to Catcher in the Rye and Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn.[46] Despite challenging the town's systems, Scout reveres
Atticus as an authority above all others, because he believes that following
one's conscience is the highest priority, even when the result is social ostracism.[47] However, scholars debate about the Southern Gothic
classification, noting that Boo Radley is, in fact, human, protective, and
benevolent. Furthermore, in addressing themes such as alcoholism, incest, rape, and racial violence, Lee wrote about her small town realistically rather than melodramatically. She portrays the problems of
individual characters as universal underlying issues in every society.[44]
As
children coming of age, Scout and Jem face hard realities and learn from them.
Lee seems to examine Jem's sense of loss about how his neighbors have disappointed
him more than Scout's. Jem says to their neighbor 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".[48] This leads him to struggle with understanding the
separations of race and class. 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. As 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."[49]
Themes
Despite
the novel's immense popularity upon publication, it has not received the close
critical attention paid to other modern American classics. Don Noble, the
editor of a book of essays about the novel, estimates that the ratio of sales
to analytical essays may be a million to one. Christopher Metress writes that
the book is "an icon whose emotive sway remains strangely powerful because
it also remains unexamined".[50] Noble suggests it does not receive academic attention
because of its consistent status as a best-seller ("If that many people
like it, it can't be any good.") and that general readers seem to feel
they do not require analytical interpretation.[51]
Harper
Lee had remained famously detached from interpreting the novel since the
mid-1960s. However, she gave some insight into her themes when, in a rare
letter to the editor, she wrote in response to the passionate reaction her book
caused:
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."[52]
Southern life and racial injustice
In
the 33 years since its publication, [To Kill a Mockingbird] 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.
When
the book was released, reviewers noted that it was divided into two parts, and
opinion was mixed about Lee's ability to connect them.[54] 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 categorized the book as Southern
romantic regionalism.[55] This sentimentalism can be seen in Lee's representation of
the Southern caste system
to explain almost every character's behavior in the novel. Scout's Aunt
Alexandra attributes Maycomb's inhabitants' faults and advantages to genealogy (families that have gambling streaks and drinking streaks),[56] and the narrator sets the action and characters amid a
finely detailed background of the Finch family history and the history of
Maycomb. This regionalist theme is further reflected in Mayella Ewell's
apparent powerlessness to admit her advances toward Tom Robinson, and Scout'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 drive the plot more than the
characters.[55]
The
second part of the novel deals with what book reviewer Harding LeMay termed
"the spirit-corroding shame of the civilized white Southerner in the
treatment of the Negro".[34] In the years following its release, many reviewers
considered To Kill a Mockingbird a novel primarily concerned with race
relations.[57] 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 yield her seat on a
city bus to a white person, which sparked the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the 1956 riots at the University of Alabama after Autherine
Lucy and Polly Myers were admitted
(Myers eventually withdrew her application and Lucy was expelled, but
reinstated in 1980).[58] In writing about the historical context of 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."[59]
Scholar
Patrick Chura, who suggests Emmett
Till was a model for Tom Robinson,
enumerates the injustices endured by the fictional Tom that Till also faced.
Chura notes the icon of the black rapist causing harm to the representation of
the "mythologized vulnerable and sacred Southern womanhood".[27] Any transgressions by black males that merely hinted at
sexual contact with white females during the time the novel was set often
resulted in a punishment of death for the accused. Tom Robinson's trial was
juried by poor white farmers who convicted him despite overwhelming evidence of
his innocence, as more educated and moderate white townspeople supported the
jury's decision. Furthermore, the victim of racial injustice in To Kill a
Mockingbird was physically impaired, which made him unable to commit the
act he was accused of, but also crippled him in other ways.[27] Roslyn Siegel includes Tom Robinson as an example of the
recurring motif among white Southern writers 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".[60] Although Tom is spared from being lynched, he is killed
with excessive violence during an attempted escape from prison, being shot
seventeen times.
The
theme of racial injustice appears symbolically in the novel as well. For example, Atticus must shoot a rabid dog, even though it is not his job to do so.[61] Carolyn Jones argues that the dog represents prejudice
within the town of Maycomb, and Atticus, who waits on a deserted street to
shoot the dog,[62] must 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,
"[t]he 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."[62]
Class
One
of the amazing things about the writing in To Kill a Mockingbird is the
economy with which Harper Lee delineates not only race—white and black within a
small community—but class. I mean different kinds of black people and
white people both, from poor white trash to the upper crust—the whole social
fabric.
In
a 1964 interview, Lee remarked that her aspiration was "to be ... the
Jane
Austen of South Alabama."[44] Both Austen and Lee challenged the social status quo and
valued individual worth over social standing. When Scout embarrasses her poorer
classmate, Walter Cunningham, at the Finch home one day, Calpurnia, their black
cook, chastises and punishes her for doing so.[64] Atticus respects Calpurnia's judgment, and later in the
book even stands up to his sister, the formidable Aunt Alexandra, when she
strongly suggests they fire Calpurnia.[65] One writer notes that Scout, "in Austenian
fashion", satirizes women with whom she does not wish to identify.[66] Literary critic Jean Blackall lists the priorities shared
by the two authors: "affirmation of order in society, obedience, courtesy,
and respect for the individual without regard for status".[44]
Scholars
argue that Lee's approach to class and race was more complex "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."[59] Lee's use of the middle-class narrative voice is a literary
device that allows an intimacy with the reader, regardless of class or cultural
background, and fosters a sense of nostalgia. Sharing Scout and Jem's perspective, the reader is allowed
to engage in 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' admonition not to judge someone
until they have walked around in that person's skin, gaining a greater
understanding of people's motives and behavior.[59]
Courage and compassion
The
novel has been noted for its poignant exploration of different forms of courage.[67][68] Scout's impulsive inclination to fight students who insult
Atticus reflects her attempt to stand up for him and defend him. Atticus is the
moral center of the novel, however, and he teaches Jem one of the most
significant lessons of courage.[69] In a statement that both foreshadows Atticus' motivation for defending Tom Robinson and
describes Mrs. Dubose, who is determined to break herself of a morphine addiction, Atticus tells Jem that courage is "when
you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no
matter what".[70]
Charles J. Shields,
who wrote the first book-length biography of Harper Lee, offers the reason for
the novel's enduring popularity and impact is that "its lessons of human
dignity and respect for others remain fundamental and universal".[71] Atticus' 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" exemplifies his
compassion.[68][72] She ponders the comment 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. Having
walked Boo home after he saves their lives, Scout stands on the Radley porch
and considers the events of the previous three years from Boo's perspective.
One writer 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."[68]
Gender roles
Just
as Lee explores Jem's development in coming to grips with a racist and unjust
society, Scout realizes what being female means, and several female characters
influence her development. Scout's primary identification with her father and
older brother allows her to describe the variety and depth of female characters
in the novel both as one of them and as an outsider.[49] 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 in order to hide her desire for him. 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.[66] For example, Mrs. Dubose chastises Scout for not wearing a
dress and camisole,
and indicates she is ruining the family name by not doing so, in addition to
insulting Atticus' intentions to defend Tom Robinson. 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."[66]
Absent
mothers and abusive fathers are another theme in the novel. Scout and Jem's
mother died before Scout could remember her, Mayella's mother is dead, and Mrs.
Radley is silent about Boo's confinement to the house. Apart from Atticus, the
fathers described are abusers.[73] Bob Ewell, it is hinted, molested his daughter,[74] and Mr. Radley imprisons his son in his house to the extent
that Boo is remembered only as a phantom. Bob Ewell and Mr. Radley represent a
form of masculinity that Atticus does not, and the novel suggests that such
men, as well as the traditionally feminine hypocrites at the Missionary
Society, can lead society astray. Atticus stands apart as a unique model of
masculinity; as one scholar explains: "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."[73]
Laws, written and unwritten
Allusions to legal issues in To Kill a Mockingbird,
particularly in scenes outside of the courtroom, have drawn the attention of
legal scholars. Claudia Durst Johnson writes 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".[75] The opening quote by the 19th-century essayist 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 taking a black woman as his common-law
wife and having interracial children; Mayella Ewell is beaten by her father in
punishment for kissing Tom Robinson; by being turned into a non-person, Boo
Radley receives a punishment far greater than any court could have given him.[58] Scout repeatedly breaks codes and laws and reacts to her
punishment for them. For example, 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]".[76] Johnson states, "[t]he 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."[58]
Loss of innocence
Songbirds
and their associated symbolism appear throughout the novel. Their family
name Finch is also Lee's mother's maiden
name. The titular mockingbird
is a key motif of this theme, which first appears when Atticus, having given
his children air-rifles for Christmas, allows their Uncle Jack to teach them to
shoot. Atticus warns them that, although they can "shoot all the bluejays
they want", they must remember that "it's a sin to kill a
mockingbird".[77] Confused, Scout approaches her neighbor Miss Maudie, 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."[77] Writer 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."[56] Scholars have noted that Lee often returns to the
mockingbird theme when trying to make a moral point.[30][78][79]
Tom
Robinson is the chief example, among several in the novel, of innocents being
carelessly or deliberately destroyed. However, scholar Christopher Metress
connects the mockingbird to Boo Radley: "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."[80] The last pages of the book illustrate this as Scout relates
the moral of a story Atticus has been reading to her, and, in allusions to both
Boo Radley and Tom Robinson,[27] states about a character who was misunderstood, "when
they finally saw him, why he hadn't done any of those things ... Atticus,
he was real nice," to which he responds, "Most people are, Scout,
when you finally see them."[81]
The
novel exposes the loss of innocence so frequently that reviewer R. A. Dave
claims that because every character has to face, or even suffer defeat, the
book takes on elements of a classical tragedy.[30] 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. Scout's experience with the Missionary Society is an
ironic juxtaposition of women who mock her, gossip, and "reflect a smug,
colonialist attitude toward other races" while giving the "appearance
of gentility, piety, and morality".[66] Conversely, when Atticus loses Tom's case, he is last to
leave the courtroom, except for his children and the black spectators in the
colored balcony, who rise silently as he walks underneath them, to honor his
efforts.[82]
Reception
Despite
her editors' warnings that the book might not sell well, it quickly became a
sensation, bringing acclaim to Lee in literary circles, in her hometown of Monroeville,
and throughout Alabama.[83] The book went through numerous subsequent printings and
became widely available through its inclusion in the Book of the Month Club and editions released by Reader's Digest
Condensed Books.[84]
Initial
reactions to the novel were varied. The
New Yorker declared Lee "a skilled,
unpretentious, and totally ingenuous writer",[85] and The Atlantic Monthly's reviewer rated the book "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.[33] Time magazine's 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".[29] The Chicago Sunday Tribune noted the even-handed
approach to the narration of the novel's events, writing: "This is in no
way a sociological novel. It underlines no cause ... To Kill a
Mockingbird is a novel of strong contemporary national significance."[86]
Not
all reviewers were enthusiastic. Some lamented the use of poor white
Southerners, and one-dimensional black victims,[87] and Granville
Hicks labeled the book "melodramatic and contrived".[35] When the book was first released, Southern writer Flannery O'Connor
commented, "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."[50] Carson McCullers apparently agreed with the Time
magazine review, writing to a cousin: "Well, honey, one thing we know is
that she's been poaching on my literary preserves."[88]
One
year after its publication To Kill a Mockingbird had been translated
into ten languages. In the years since, it has sold more than 30 million
copies and been translated into more than 40 languages.[89] The novel has never been out of print in hardcover or
paperback, and has become part of the standard literature curriculum. A 2008
survey of secondary books read by students between grades 9–12 in the U.S.
indicates the novel is the most widely read book in these grades.[90] 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".[91][note
1] It is considered by some to be the
"Great American Novel".[92]
The
50th anniversary of the novel's release was met with celebrations and
reflections on its impact.[93] Eric Zorn
of the Chicago Tribune
praises Lee's "rich use of language" but writes that the central
lesson is that "courage isn't always flashy, isn't always enough, but is
always in style".[94] Jane Sullivan in the Sydney Morning Herald agrees,
stating that the book "still rouses fresh and horrified indignation"
as it examines morality, a topic that has recently become unfashionable.[95] Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writing in The
Guardian states that Lee, rare among
American novelists, writes with "a fiercely progressive ink, in which
there is nothing inevitable about racism and its very foundation is open to
question", comparing her to William
Faulkner, who wrote about racism as an
inevitability.[96] Literary critic Rosemary Goring in Scotland's The Herald
notes the connections between Lee and Jane
Austen, stating the book's central theme,
that "one's moral convictions are worth fighting for, even at the risk of
being reviled" is eloquently discussed.[97]
Native
Alabamian sports writer Allen
Barra sharply criticized Lee and the
novel in The Wall Street Journal calling Atticus a "repository of cracker-barrel
epigrams" and the novel represents a "sugar-coated myth" of
Alabama history. Barra writes, "It's time to stop pretending that To
Kill a Mockingbird is some kind of timeless classic that ranks with the
great works of American literature. Its bloodless liberal humanism is sadly
dated".[98] Thomas Mallon
in The New Yorker
criticizes Atticus' stiff and self-righteous demeanor, and calls Scout "a
kind of highly constructed doll" whose speech and actions are improbable.
Although acknowledging that the novel works, Mallon blasts Lee's "wildly
unstable" narrative voice for developing a story about a content
neighborhood until it begins to impart morals in the courtroom drama, following
with his observation that "the book has begun to cherish its own
goodness" by the time the case is over.[99][note
2] Defending the book, Akin Ajayi
writes that justice "is often complicated, but must always be founded upon
the notion of equality and fairness for all." Ajayi states that the book
forces readers to question issues about race, class, and society, but that it
was not written to resolve them.[100]
Many
writers compare their perceptions of To Kill a Mockingbird as adults
with when they first read it as children. Mary McDonagh Murphy interviewed
celebrities including Oprah
Winfrey, Rosanne
Cash, Tom
Brokaw, and Harper's sister Alice Lee, who
read the novel and compiled their impressions of it as children and adults into
a book titled Scout, Atticus, and Boo.[101]
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