To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee

The Story:

The story is set the 1930's in Maycomb, a small town in Alabama and is told by Scout Finch who looks back to some important years in her childhood. Scout and her older brother Jem were brought up by their father Atticus, a widower. Their black housekeeper, Calpurnia, helps Atticus with the children.

Scout, Jem and their friend Dill, who visits every summer, are fascinated by their strange neighbour Arthur Boo Radley, who has stayed inside his house for about fifteen years and is the subject of rumours and fear. The try a variety of strategies to make Boo Radley come out of his house. Atticus, who is bringing up his children to respect and accept others as well as he does, disapproves of these activities. Jem and Scout find presents in the hollow oak tree near their house. Jem realises that they come from Boo Radley. A fire burns down Miss Maudie's house and as the children watch somebody puts a blanket around Scout to keep her warm. They soon find out the person was Boo again.

Atticus is a lawyer and he is going to defend a black man, Tom Robinson, who has been accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell. As a result the children hear their father criticised by a number of their prejudiced neighbours and other citizens, and even by members of their family. Atticus explains his reasons for wanting to take this case and that he is encouraged  by his conviction that everyone is equal in the eyes of the law.

When a dog suffering from  rabies threatens the safety of the town, Atticus is called on to shoot it. Atticus has always hidden his talent for shooting in front of his children. He doesn't think that a man with gun is an example of true courage and doesn't want his children to get that impression. In fact his moral courage is far greater than being brave with a gun in the hand!

Jem is infuriated by the gibes of their neighbour, Mrs Dubose, and cuts off her camellias. As a punishment he has to read to her every day for a month. When she dies, Atticus tells his children that Mrs Dubose was a morphine addict who at last managed to give up her addiction before she died. At that time she showed real courage.

Calpurnia takes the children to her church. There they learn more about the black community and about the Tom Robinson case

Aunt Alexandra comes to stay and tries to impose her ideas about suitable behaviour on the children and on Atticus. She is very like her brother. Her snobbery and her prejudice alienate her from the tolerant Finches, but she fits in well with the rest of Maycomb.

As the Tom Robinson case comes to trial, Atticus is threatened for trying to protect him. Atticus's questioning in court makes it clear that Tom Robinson is innocent and that Mayella Ewell has been lying. In spite of the evidence the jury, after long discussion, finds Tom Robinson guilty. Bob Ewell, Mayella's father, threatens trouble for Atticus in the future. Tom Robinson tries to escape from prison and is shot seventeen times.

A short period of time has passed as Jem and Scout return from a Halloween pageant in the dark. They are attacked by Bob Ewell, who is armed with a knife. Arthur Boo Radley leaves his house to safe the children and Bob Ewell is killed. To protect Boo the sheriff persuades Atticus to accept the story that Bob Ewell accidentally fell on his knife.  

The Author:

NELLE HARPER LEE

Nelle Harper Lee was born in Monroeville, Alabama, on 28 April 1926, as a daughter of a practising lawyer. After being educated locally she went to the University of Alabama to study law and spent a year at the University of Oxford, where she was an exchange student. After submitting her first writings to a literary agent she was encouraged by the response she got.

To Kill a Mockingbird was published in July 1960. In May 1961 Harper Lee was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The following year the book was made into a successful film.

Harper Lee herself spoke of To Kill a Mockingbird as 'a love-story pure and simple', and it is. It represents the love of childhood, of parenthood, of humanity, seen in the fight against prejudice.

Historical Background:

The period of time covered by the novel is 1933-1935. It was a time of economic depression in the United States, as elsewhere. It started with the huge crash of the stock market know as the "Wall Street Crash" of 1929. Billions of shares became valueless overnight! It's effects were widespread unemployment, poverty and near starvation for millions of people.

In 1933 Theodore Roosevelt became President and introduced two programs to help the suffering people (mentioned as "New Deal" in chapter 27)

In the foreground of the novel is Maycomb. It is a small town in the South and it still rules a white-black segregation (coloured people are second-class citizens).

The Whites form the South didn't accept the Blacks because the South lost to the North in the American Civil War (1861-1865). Since then the hatred of the White against the Black grew and grew (Ku Klux Klan - chapter 15)

The Characters:

Atticus Finch:

Atticus' name derives from a friend of Cicero, who was known for his policy of neutrality. He is wise, strong and able to see a problem from all its sides. Although he spends a lot of time with his children, he wants them to develop their own views. He looks always calm and is very humorous. Calpurnia, his housekeeper, is never treated as a slave by Atticus. He shows his courage, when he decides to defend Tom Robinson. But there is also a dark humiliating part of Atticus, which shows up, when he shoots the mad dog. Atticus usually is capable to cover that part and be the man, who is admired by his children and beloved by his friends.

Jean Louise Finch (Scout):

Somehow she the narrator of the story, as she is looking back on her childhood.

As a child she is an intelligent and sensitive girl but, as Atticus says, she doesn't use her head properly because she lets her emotions run away with her. She lively and impulsive, always ready to rush into a fight. Scout's undisciplined and unladylike behaviour earns her aunt's criticism and Scout resists her aunt's attempts  to change her behaviour.

In a way the novel is about the education of her mind. Scout likes adventures and has courage. Her education takes place at home through her father. She learns tolerance, understanding, compassion and self-discipline. Scout and her friend bring the sleepy old town of Maycomb to life.

Jem Finch:

He is like Scout. The difference lies only in their age. When the retrospect opens he is nine years old and twelve when it ends. Jem always wants to protect his sister, because he has gone through all that Scout will experience. Atticus is his ideal, he adores his father, because he is so impressed by his courage. Jem is being educated in humanity and so he knows the difference between good and bad. Nevertheless he is seriously upset by what is going on, particularly as he knows that all the evidence is on Tom Robinson's side.

Jem makes very important steps in his real education throughout the novel.

Dill:

Dill is a friend of Scout and Jem. He cheers up the children's lives by the quality of his imagination and participation in their games. He also has the idea to make Boo Radley come out. He lives at as Aunt Rachel in Maycomb because his parents don't want him. When his mother remarries he tries to get on with his stepfahter, but it doesn't work and suddenly he runs away and hides in Scout's room.

Dill also stops Scout and Jem from getting into trouble. He is very sensitive.

Arthur "Boo" Radley:

He is a silent presence throughout the novel, an enigmatic figure. He has been kept in solitary confinement and is condemned by his past single act against the law, and that is dubious, he is released to his family, who are strict Baptists and may be responsible for Arthur's state of mind. His main contact with the world outside is through the children he watches play.

He has got a great concern for them (He places a blanket around Scout's shoulders,).

This concern reaches it's climax when he saves Jem's life (and Scout's) by killing Bob Ewell.

Calpurnia:

(Roman connection: same name like Julius Caesar's wife) She is mother to the motherless family Finch, watches over their charges protectively and possessively. Through reading some of Atticus' books on law she has acquired some education. Atticus depends on her, but she makes no emotional demands on him. She seems to have bridged the racial gap and contributes to the children's wider education by taking them to the negro church. Miss

Maudie Atkinson:

Of the other characters in 'To kill a mockingbird' the most lovable is certainly Miss Maudie Atkinson. She and Atticus are the twin mirrors of sanity and tolerance, and they respect and love each other with uncomplicated and sure insight.
Maudi cares for the children, and when Scout finds herself cut out from the boys' game, she spends many pleasant hours on Miss Maudie's porch listening to her views of life, which are straight, sincere, and sympathetic.
Miss Maudie has a wicked sence of humour. She has a central moral function
in the novel.

Mayella Ewell:

She is  lonely and turns to a negro who has helped her and, by her standards, shown her some warmth. She has to work hard, raising the motherless children, is regularly beaten and almost certainly sexually assaulted by her frequently drunken father. She breaks the Southern code and cannot face the disgrace of what she has done, and makes up her story of rape. She is guilty and knows it, yet when she looks at Tim Robinson it is as if he is dirt beneath her feet.

Bob Ewell:

Bob Ewell, aggressively pleased at being in the spotlight in court, has degraded his daughter, commited perjury, beaten his children, drunk away his relief cheques and, finally realizing that men in their hearts know that he is a liar. He is the one who attacks Scout and Jem. But we must not forget that social conditions ans poverty hane helped to make him what he is. The human message of the novel is that the Bob Ewells of this world must be changed by love, by humanity and by compassion.

Coloured Characters:

The have an important function in this novel. The whole novel stresses the importance of humanity and equality and the rejection of prejudice.

Although the constitution and law declare that all human beings are equal, certain codes still exist which have to be respected. Actually there is one law for black and one for white. It also can be criticised that the blacks in the novel are presented  as stereotypical descendants of those in "Uncle Tom's Cabin". They have little to do with modern coloured people coloured people who support black power in reaction to white suppression.

Mrs. Dubose:

Mrs. Dubose is sordidly yet sympathetically drawn. She provides direct education in feelings for the children whose father goes to law for "niggers".

Mrs. Merriweather:

She only appears in one chapter and in a part of another. She is one of the Christian ladies of Maycomb. Merriweather talks of Christianity without understanding the practical meaning of the term to the coloured people. She is very prejudiced.

Miss Stefanie:

She is a pure caricature. She fosters the children's Radley fantasies. After the trial she is frightened of the thought of possible violence and scandals.

The Style of the Novel:

The style of To Kill a Mockingbird is finely evocative of the period. The slang of the children, the Southern intonations of the ladies at the missionary tea, and the distinctive speech of the coloured people contribute to give the book a colloquial style. For the major part it is natural, often dramatic, sometimes humorous. It's unforced naturalness makes the novel eminently readable, exciting and stimulating.

The Mockingbird Symbol:

In the literature, a symbol is something used by a writer which stands for or suggests something else, and it can be associated with that something - or someone - else in an explicit or subtle way.
Miss Maudie, who represents a love of nature and a hope for human nature, tells Scout (p.96) that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird. This bird puts everything into its song and does no harm to anyone. it stands for goodness, innocence, the range of its song suggesting something more than narrow range of man in his entrenched, small-town, racially prejudiced views. At the end
of the novel Scout has learned enough about humanity from her father's standards to be able to say that it would be sort of like shooting a mockingbird.
The mockingbird gives it song, and Boo has given his love to the children,
saving their lives in the process.

Topics:

Racial Prejudice

Courage

Growing up

Justice