_KILL A BIRD_ SHARER
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<<Nelle Harper Lee (born April 28, 1926) is an American author, known
for her 1960 Pulitzer Prize winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird. She
assisted her close friend Truman Capote in his research for the book
In Cold Blood. Since then, she has no published works. She has been
the recipient of numerous honorary degrees, but has always declined to
make a speech.
Nelle Harper Lee was born in Monroeville, Alabama, the youngest of
four children of Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Cunningham Finch. Her
father, a former newspaper editor and proprietor, was a lawyer who
served in the Alabama State Legislature from 1926 to 1938. As a child,
Lee was a tomboy and a precocious reader, and was best friends with
her schoolmate and neighbor, the young Truman Capote.
In 1944, Lee graduated from Monroe County High School in Monroeville,
and enrolled at the all-female Huntingdon College in Montgomery for
one year, and pursued a law degree at the University of Alabama from
1945 to 1949, pledging the Chi Omega sorority. Lee wrote for several
student publications and spent a year as editor of the campus humor
magazine, Rammer Jammer. Though she did not complete the law degree,
she studied for a summer in Oxford, England, before moving to New York
City in 1950, where she worked as a reservation clerk with Eastern Air
Lines and BOAC.
Lee continued as a reservation clerk until 1958, when she devoted
herself to writing. She lived a frugal life, traveling between her
cold-water-only apartment in New York City and her family home in
south-central Alabama to care for her father.
To Kill a Mockingbird
“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. ”
—Harper Lee, quoted in Newquist, 1964
Having written several long stories, Harper Lee located an agent in
November 1956. The following month at the East 50th townhouse of her
friends Michael Brown and Joy Williams Brown, she received a gift of a
year's wages with a note: "You have one year off from your job to
write whatever you please. Merry Christmas."Within a year, she had a
first draft. Working with J. B. Lippincott & Co. editor Tay Hohoff,
she completed To Kill a Mockingbird in the summer of 1959. Published
July 11, 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird was an immediate bestseller and
won great critical acclaim, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
in 1961. It remains a bestseller with more than 30 million copies in
print. In 1999, it was voted "Best Novel of the Century" in a poll by
the Library Journal.
Many details of To Kill a Mockingbird are apparently autobiographical.
Like Lee, the tomboy (Scout) is the daughter of a respected small-town
Alabama attorney. The plot involves a legal case, the workings of
which would have been familiar to Lee, who studied law. Scout's friend
Dill was inspired by Lee's childhood friend and neighbor, Truman
Capote, while Lee is the model for a character in Capote's first
novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms.
Harper Lee has downplayed autobiographical parallels. Yet Truman
Capote, mentioning the character Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird,
described details he considered biographical: "In my original version
of Other Voices, Other Rooms I had that same man living in the house
that used to leave things in the trees, and then I took that out. He
was a real man, and he lived just down the road from us. We used to go
and get those things out of the trees. Everything she wrote about it
is absolutely true. But you see, I take the same thing and transfer it
into some Gothic dream, done in an entirely different way."
After To Kill a Mockingbird
After completing To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee accompanied Capote to
Holcomb, Kansas, to assist him in researching what they thought would
be an article on a small town's response to the murder of a farmer and
his family. Capote expanded the material into his best-selling book,
In Cold Blood (1966).
Since publication of To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee has granted almost no
requests for interviews or public appearances, and with the exception
of a few short essays, has published no further writings. She did work
on a second novel — The Long Goodbye — eventually filing it away
unfinished. During the mid-1980s, she began a factual book about an
Alabama serial murderer, but also put it aside when she was not
satisfied. Her withdrawal from public life prompted unfounded
speculation that new publications were in the works. Similar
speculation followed the American writers J. D. Salinger and Ralph
Ellison.
Lee said of the 1962 Academy Award-winning screenplay adaptation of To
Kill a Mockingbird by Horton Foote: "I think it is one of the best
translations of a book to film ever made". She also became a friend of
Gregory Peck, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Atticus Finch, the
father of the novel's narrator, Scout. She remains close to the
actor's family. Peck's grandson, Harper Peck Voll, is named after her.
While attending an August 20, 2007 ceremony inducting four members
into the Alabama Academy of Honor, Lee responded to an invitation to
address the audience with "Well, it's better to be silent than to be a
fool.">>
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Capote
<<Truman Capote (September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) was an American
author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays and nonfiction are
recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at
Tiffany's (1958) and In Cold Blood (1965), which he labeled a
"nonfiction novel." At least 20 films and television dramas have been
produced from Capote novels, stories and screenplays. Capote
discovered his calling by the age of eleven, and for the rest of his
childhood he honed his writing ability. Capote began his professional
career writing short stories. The critical success of one story,
"Miriam" (1945), attracted the attention of Random House publisher
Bennett Cerf, resulting in a contract to write Other Voices, Other
Rooms (1948). Capote earned the most fame with In Cold Blood (1965), a
journalistic work about the murder of a Kansas farm family in their
home, a book Capote spent four years writing. A milestone in popular
culture, it was the peak of his career, although it was not his final
book. In the 1970s, he maintained his celebrity status by appearing on
television talk shows.
Born Truman Streckfus Persons in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of 17-
year-old Lillie Mae Faulk and salesman Archulus Persons. His parents
divorced when he was four, and he was sent to Monroeville, Alabama,
where, for the following four to five years, he was raised by his
mother's relatives. He formed a fast bond with his mother's distant
relative, Nanny Rumbley Faulk, whom Truman called "Sook". "Her face is
remarkable—not unlike Lincoln's, craggy like that, and tinted by sun
and wind," is how Capote described Sook in "A Christmas Memory". In
Monroeville, he was a neighbor and friend of author Harper Lee, who
wrote the 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird, with the character Dill
being based on Capote.
As a lonely child, Capote taught himself to read and write before he
entered his first year of schooling. Capote was often seen at age five
carrying his dictionary and notepad, and he began writing fiction at
the age of eleven. On Saturdays, he made trips from Monroeville to the
nearby city of Mobile on the Gulf Coast, and at one point he submitted
a short story, Old Mrs. Busybody, to a children's writing contest
sponsored by a newspaper, the Mobile Press Register. In 1933, he moved
to New York City to live with his mother and her second husband,
Joseph Capote, a Cuban-born textile broker, who adopted him as his
stepson and renamed him Truman García Capote. However, Joseph was
convicted of embezzlement and shortly afterwards his income crashed
and the family was forced to leave Park Avenue.
Of his early days, Capote related, "I began writing really sort of
seriously when I was about 11. I say seriously in the sense that like
other kids go home and practice the violin or the piano or whatever, I
used to go home from school every day and I would write for about
three hours. I was obsessed by it." In 1939, the Capote family moved
to Greenwich, Connecticut, and Truman attended Greenwich High School,
where he wrote for both the school's literary journal, The Green
Witch, and the school newspaper.
Capote and his Monroeville neighbor, Harper Lee, remained lifelong
friends. He based the character of Idabel in Other Voices, Other Rooms
on her, and was in turn the inspiration for the character Dill in
Lee's 1960 bestselling, Pulitzer prize-winning novel To Kill a
Mockingbird. Capote once acknowledged this: "Mr. and Mrs. Lee, Harper
Lee's mother and father, lived very near. Harper Lee was my best
friend. Did you ever read her book, To Kill a Mockingbird? I'm a
character in that book, which takes place in the same small town in
Alabama where we lived. Her father was a lawyer and she and I used to
go to trials all the time as children. We went to the trials instead
of going to the movies." Like Capote, Dill is creative, bold, and
suffers from an unsatisfactory family history. Later, Lee was his
crucial partner in doing the investigations for In Cold Blood.>>
<<Truman Capote, wrote on the dust jacket of the first edition,
"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 has
been construed to suggest that Capote wrote the book or edited it
heavily. The only supporting evidence for this rumor is the 2003
report of a Tuscaloosa newspaper, which quoted Capote's biological
father, Archulus Persons, as claiming that Capote had written "almost
all" of the book. Extensive notes between Lee and her editor at
Lippincott also refute the rumor of Capote's authorship.[102] Lee's
older sister Alice has responded to the rumor, saying: "That's the
biggest lie ever told.">>
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_KILL A BIRD_ SHARER
*BAKER DILL HARRIS*
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Kill_a_Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird
Author Harper Lee
Publisher J. B. Lippincott & Co.
Publication date July 11, 1960
Pages 296 (first edition, hardback)
<<To Kill a Mockingbird is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper
Lee published in 1960. It was instantly successful and has become a
classic of modern American literature. The plot and characters are
loosely based on the author's observations of her family and
neighbors, as well as on an event that occurred near her hometown in
1936, when she was 10 years old. As a Southern Gothic novel and a
Bildungsroman, 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 and compassion, and
gender roles in the American Deep South. The book is widely taught in
schools in English-speaking countries 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.
Lee's novel was initially reviewed by at least 30 newspapers and
magazines, whose critics varied widely in their assessments. More
recently, British librarians ranked the book ahead of the Bible as one
"every adult should read before they die". The book was adapted into
an Oscar-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 of Monroeville,
Alabama. To date, it is Lee's only published novel, and although she
continues to respond to the book's impact, she has refused any
personal publicity for herself or the novel since 1964.
Born in 1926, Harper Lee grew up in the Southern town of Monroeville,
Alabama, where she became close friends with the 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.
Lee spent two and a half years writing To Kill a Mockingbird. A
description of the book's creation by the National Endowment for the
Arts relates an episode when Lee became so frustrated that she tossed
the manuscript out the window into the snow. Her agent made her
retrieve it. The book was published on July 11, 1960. It was initially
titled Atticus, but Lee renamed it to reflect a story that went beyond
a character portrait.
Autobiographical elements
Lee has 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". 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, 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. Though Scout's mother died when she was a baby, and Lee
was 25 when her mother died, her mother was prone to a nervous
condition that rendered her mentally and emotionally absent. Lee had a
brother named Edwin, who — like the fictional Jem — was four years
older than his sister. As in the novel, a black housekeeper came daily
to care for the Lee house and family.
The character of Dill was modeled on Lee's childhood friend, Truman
Capote, known then 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. Lee was a
scrappy tomboy who was quick to fight, but 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 Lee's father gave
them. They became good friends when both felt alienated from their
peers; Capote called the two of them "apart people". 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.
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 and died in 1952.
The origin of Tom Robinson is less clear, though 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, 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. He died there of
tuberculosis in 1937. Scholars believe that the plot may have also
been influenced by the notorious case of the Scottsboro Boys, in which
nine black men were convicted of raping two white women on very poor
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. Emmett Till, a black teenager
who was murdered for 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 Robinson.
Style
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". 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." 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. 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. However, at times the blending is
effective enough to cause reviewers to question Scout's preternatural
vocabulary and depth of understanding. 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.
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." Scout's
role as a girl who beats up boys, hates wearing dresses, and swears
for the fun of it provides humor, but Tavernier-Courbin notes that Lee
uses parody, satire, and irony to address complex issues, especially
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. Lee employs satire in describing Scout's first day in school, a
frustrating experience; 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. Scout tries to converse with
Atticus' client, Mr. Cunningham, about what she understands as 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 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.
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 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. Scout falls asleep during the
Halloween pageant and makes a tardy entrance onstage, causing the
audience to laugh uproariously. Scout is so distracted and embarrassed
that she prefers to go home in her ham costume, which saves her life.
Genres
Scholars have characterized To Kill a Mockingbird as both a Southern
Gothic novel 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. 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. Outsiders are also an important element of
Southern Gothic texts and one scholar notes that Lee challenges every
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, because he believes
that following one's conscience is the highest priority, even when the
result is social ostracism. 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.
As children, Scout and Jem face hard realities and learn from them in
To Kill a Mockingbird, leading critics to categorize the novel as a
Bildungsroman, which typically describes the coming-of-age of the main
character. Lee seems to examine Jem's sense of loss about how his
neighbors have disappointed him more than Scout's. As 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".
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."
Themes
Despite the novel's immense popularity upon publication, 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 in 2003 that the
book is "an icon whose emotive sway remains strangely powerful because
it also remains unexamined".[44]
Southern life and racial injustice
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.
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. 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 explains Maycomb's inhabitants' faults
and advantages through genealogy (families that have gambling streaks
and drinking streaks), and the narrator sets the action and characters
amid a 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 Atticus' 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.
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". In the years following its
release, many reviewers considered To Kill a Mockingbird a novel
primarily concerned with race relations. 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, 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). 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." 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".
Its publication is so closely associated with the Civil Rights
Movement that many studies of the book and biographies of Harper Lee
include descriptions of important moments in the movement, despite the
fact that she had no direct involvement in any of them.
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". 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. 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". Although Tom is spared from being lynched,
he is killed with excessive violence during an attempted escape from
prison, when he is 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. 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, 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."
Despite the novel's thematic focus on racial injustice, its black
characters are rarely explored as fully as the white characters. In
its use of racial epithets, stereotyped depictions of superstitious
blacks, and Calpurnia, who seems to be an updated version of the
"contented slave" motif, the book can be viewed as marginalizing black
characters. One writer asserts that the use of Scout's narration
serves as a convenient mechanism for readers to be innocent and
detached from the racial conflict. Scout's voice "functions as the not-
me which allows the rest of us — black and white, male and female — to
find our relative position in society".
Although the novel has had a generally positive impact on race
relations for white readers, it has received a more ambiguous
reception by black readers. A teaching guide for the novel published
by The English Journal cautions, "what seems wonderful or powerful to
one group of students may seem degrading to another". A Canadian
language arts consultant 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
reaction this way: "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."
Class
In a 1964 interview, Lee remarked that her aspiration was "to be ...
the Jane Austen of South Alabama." 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. 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. One writer
notes that Scout, "in Austenian fashion", satirizes women with whom
she does not wish to identify. 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".
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."[51] 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.[51]
[edit] Courage and compassion
The novel has been noted for its poignant exploration of different
forms of courage.[66][67] 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.[68] In
a statement that 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".[69]
Charles Shields, who has written the only book-length biography of
Harper Lee to date, 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".[70] 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.[67][71] 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."[67]
[edit] 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.[42] 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 own 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.[65] 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."[65]
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 died before Boo was confined to the
house. Apart from Atticus, the fathers described are abusers.[72] Bob
Ewell, it is hinted, molested his daughter,[59] and Mr. Radley
imprisons his son in his house until 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 from other men 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."[72]
[edit] Laws, written and unwritten
To Kill a Mockingbird is noted for its extensive allusions to legal
issues, particularly in scenes outside of the courtroom, and has drawn
the attention of legal scholars. Claudia Durst Johnson notes 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".[73] 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 marrying a black woman 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.[50] 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]".[74] 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."[50]
[edit] Death of innocence
A color photograph of a northern mockingbird
Lee used the mockingbird to symbolize innocence in the novel.
Songbirds and their associated symbolism appear throughout the novel.
The family's last name of Finch also shares 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".[75]
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."[75] 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."[48] Scholars have noted that Lee often returns to the
mockingbird theme when trying to make a moral point.[24][76][77]
Tom Robinson is the chief example among several innocents destroyed
carelessly or deliberately throughout the novel. 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."[78] 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[22] 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."[79]
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, giving it elements of a
classical tragedy.[24] 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.
Lee uses irony to describe Scout witnessing the Missionary Society
meeting, whose members mock Scout, gossip, and "reflect a smug,
colonialist attitude toward other races" while giving the "appearance
of gentility, piety, and morality".[65] 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.[80]
[edit] Reception
First Edition Points
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
Number of printings: 5000 approx.
[show]Boards
Brown, with a green cloth spine.
[show]Verso
FIRST EDITION
[show]Dust jacket
Designed by Shirley Smith, $3.95 on the lower corner, no printing
statement, Harper Lee's photograph on back, Truman Capote quote in
green ink on the front flap, Jonathan Daniels blurb on the rear flap.
[show]Reference
Pulitzer Prize First Edition Guide, accessed March 24, 2008.
Despite her editors' warnings that the book might not sell well, it
quickly became a sensation, bringing acclaim to Lee not only in
literary circles, but also in her hometown of Monroeville and
throughout Alabama.[81] 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.[82]
Initial reactions to the novel were varied. The New Yorker declared it
"skilled, unpretentious, and totally ingenious",[83] 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.[27] 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".[23] 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."[84]
Not all comments were enthusiastic, however. Some reviews lamented the
use of poor white Southerners, and one-dimensional black victims,[85]
and Granville Hicks labeled the book "melodramatic and contrived".[29]
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."[44] 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."[86]
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.[87] To Kill
a Mockingbird 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.
[88] 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",[89] and has appeared on numerous other lists
that describe its impact.[note 1]
[edit] Atticus Finch and the legal profession
Main article: Atticus Finch
One of the most significant impacts To Kill a Mockingbird has had is
Atticus Finch's model of integrity for the legal profession. As
scholar Alice Petry explains, "Atticus has become something of a folk
hero in legal circles and is treated almost as if he were an actual
person."[90] 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.[91] 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 claims, "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".[92]
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 because of him and esteemed him as a hero.[93] Critics of
Atticus maintain he is morally ambiguous and does not use his legal
skills to challenge the racist status quo in Maycomb.[44] However, in
1997, the Alabama State Bar erected a monument to Atticus in
Monroeville, marking his existence as the "first commemorative
milestone in the state's judicial history".[94] In 2008, Lee herself
received an honorary special membership to the Alabama State Bar for
creating Atticus who "has become the personification of the exemplary
lawyer in serving the legal needs of the poor".[95]
[edit] Controversy
[edit] Challenges and bans
To Kill a Mockingbird has been a source of significant controversy
since its being the subject of classroom study as early as 1963. The
book's racial slurs, profanity, and frank discussion of rape have led
people to challenge its appropriateness in libraries and classrooms
across the United States. The American Library Association reported
that To Kill a Mockingbird was #21 of the 100 most frequently
challenged books of 2000–2009.[96]
One of the first incidents of the book being challenged was in
Hanover, Virginia, in 1966: a parent protested that the use of rape as
a plot device was immoral. Johnson cites examples of letters to local
newspapers, which ranged from amusement to fury; those letters
expressing the most outrage, however, complained about Mayella Ewell's
attraction to Tom Robinson over the depictions of rape.[97] Upon
learning the school administrators were holding hearings to decide the
book's appropriateness for the classroom, Harper Lee sent $10 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".
[45] The National Education Association in 1968 placed the novel
second on a list of books receiving the most complaints from private
organizations—after Little Black Sambo.[98]
With a shift of attitudes about race in the 1970s, To Kill a
Mockingbird faced challenges of a different sort: the treatment of
racism in Maycomb was not condemned harshly enough. In one high-
profile case outside the U.S., school districts in the Canadian
provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia attempted to have the book
removed from standard teaching curricula in the 1990s, 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.[99]
The response to these attempts to remove the book from standard
teaching was passionate across Canada and the United States, and many
of the initial complainants were labeled as overly sensitive and
"benign censors."[99] Isaac Saney, who supports 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."[99][note 2]
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."
The book was made into the well-received 1962 film with the same
title, starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. 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.'" The movie was a smash hit at the
box office, making more than $20 million, against a $2 million budget.
It won three Oscars: 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 actress who played Scout.
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." Peck met Lee's father, the model for Atticus,
before 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 London 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."
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 the production moves into the Monroe County
Courthouse and 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." According to a National Geographic
article, the novel is so revered in Monroeville that people quote
lines from it like Scripture; yet Harper Lee herself has refused to
attend any performances, because "she abhors anything that trades on
the book's fame". To underscore this sentiment, Lee demanded that a
book of recipes named Calpurnia's Cookbook not be published and sold
out of the Monroe County Heritage Museum. Despite her discouragement,
a rising number of tourists have come to Monroeville, hoping to see
Lee's inspiration for the book, or Lee herself. Local residents call
them "Mockingbird groupies", and although Lee is not reclusive, she
refuses publicity and interviews with an emphatic "Hell, no!">>