People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for- Atticus
This is one of those books that I read at least once a year, and each time I find something new to appreciate in it. It also has the rare distinction of having one of the best and most accurate cinematic adaptions to date. (Seriously, To Kill A Mockingbird and Hogfather are the two off the top of my head you can say that of). My mother lent me her copy back when I was a child (which was an honor, because I think this is the one book you’d have to pry out of her cold dead hands; it was a gift from her Godmother), and the strange thing is, is that I have never gotten my own copy; I still always read hers. Which has kept in amazing shape, what with it being an over sixty year-old copy and the both of us reading it year after year.
Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.-Scout
To Kill A Mockingbird is the story of Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch, a young girl growing up in Depression-Era Maycomb, Georgia. It covers 1933 to 1935, when her father Atticus Finch, a local lawyer, represents Tom Robinson, a young Black man accused of rape by Mayella Ewell, the daughter of the local White Trash family. While the town is in an uproar about the trial, Scout, her brother Jeremy Atticus “Jem” Finch, and occasionally their friend Charles Baker “Dill” Harris, contrive various ways to spy a glimpse of the neighborhood recluse, Arthur “Boo” Radley. And that isn’t even really a quarter of what happens; there is just so much to occurs that to cover it all would spoil the book. I haven’t even mentioned the Finch family housekeeper Calpurnia, their neighbor Miss Maudie, Atticus’s sister Alexandra and her long standing battle to get Scout out of overalls and into dresses; there are just too many good characters to name. Though 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”, she borrowed heavily from her own life for the story; Scout is heavily based on herself; Atticus and Tom Robinson’s case were inspired by her father and a case he once took, Boo Radley on someone who lived in the neighborhood she grew up in. Dill is the sole character 100% based on a real person; Truman Capote, an old childhood friend of Harper Lee. The book is about the accepted racism that existed at the time in America, and the casual prejudice, racial injustice and human cruelty that children witnessed growing up, and the loss of innocence that stemmed from it.
His food doesn’t stick going down, does it?-Miss Maudie
Scout, starting the book at six and ending it at the age of nine, is a slightly unreliable narrator; everything is seen through her eyes, shaped by her opinions. For example, Calpurnia starts out the book as the “Wicked Stepmother” to Scout’s “Cinderella” and ends it as someone who Scout realizes has only been trying to look after her in a maternal role. Jem, being four years older, also has to filter quite a few things into something Scout would better understand. Which is one of the truly enjoyable things of the book; the children act, think, and speak like children. They make mistakes, half the plans they have to get Boo out of the house are things only children would think would work, and Scout only certainly doesn’t understand the danger of getting between a lynch mob and her father; the situation is only saved because she helps one of the participants remember that Atticus is not just the lawyer representing a Black man; he’s also the father of the classmate of the man’s son. And the depths Bob Ewell goes to get revenge on Atticus for daring to represent Tom Robinson, and for what Mayella said in her testimony (which is kind of a blink-and-you-miss-it insinuation that could put chills up your spine) is one of the most nerve-wracking parts of the book.
I can see why it has been declared one of the 100 most Influential Novels, though this year it hit a little differently; it seems like we’re all backsliding back into a time where Tom Robinson’s trial would end the exact same way.
I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.-Atticus
I still love the book though.
