To Kill a Mockingbird is a bildungsroman and crime novel written
by Harper Lee and published in 1960, which in the same year the Pulitzer Prize.
The protagonist and the narrator of this book is Jean Louise Finch, a child nicknamed Scout. She and her brother Jem, orphans of their mother, live in Maycomb (in Alabama) with a dark-skinned governess, Calpurnia, and their father, the lawyer Atticus Finch.
Scout and
Jem, returning from school, have to pass next to Radley’s house. Arthur Radley,
nicknamed Boo, is a young man who has decided to not leave home anymore. This
event gave birth to many legends: a lot of people think that he kills people overnight.
Because of this prejudice, the majority of people, above all children, are
scared of him.
However,
Scout and Jem are fascinated by Boo’s legend. They try more than once to see
the mysterious young man, whose face they do not know.
Moreover, they
are often witnesses of oppression of dark-skinned people from white-skinned ones. Racism will become part of their lives when Atticus decides to defend Tom Robinson, a black
man accused of raping a white girl.
Many white people
start considering Atticus an enemy, because he is a friend to black people. Anyway, he knows that he must defend Tom because he knows he is innocent. Besides,
he knows well that there are few, or zero, chances to win this case since the culprit is black.
“[Scout]
<<You mean if you didn’t defend that man, Jem and me wouldn’t have to
mind you any more?>>
[Atticus]
<<That’s about right.>>
[Scout]
<<Why?>>
[Atticus]
<<Because I could never ask you to mind me again. Scout, simply by the
nature of the work, every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that
affects him personally. This one’s mine, I guess. You might hear some ugly talk
about it at school, but do one thing for me if you will: you just hold your
head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t
you let ‘em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change... it’s a good
one, even if it does resist learning.>>
[Scout]
<<Atticus, are we going to win it?>>
[Atticus]
<<No, honey.>>
[Scout]
<<Then why-- >>
[Atticus]
<<Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no
reason for us not to try to win.>>”
“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 you see it through no matter what.
You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”
However,
Atticus hopes for justice, as everyone before the court is equal.
“But there is one way in this country in which all men are created
equal- there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a
Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the
equal of any college president. That institution gentlemen, is a court. It can
be the Supreme Court of the United States or the humblest JP court in the land,
or this honourable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults as does
any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levelers,
and in our courts all men are created equal.”
Atticus
highlights that black and white people are equal. Sure enough, wickedness
is not related to skin colour, but it is part of each human being.
“Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson’s
skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you. You know the truth, and the
truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are
not to be trusted around women—black or white. But this is a truth that applies
to the human race and to no particular race of men. There is not a person in
this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing,
and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire.”
“As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of
your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it - whenever a
white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how
fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.”
However, even
though Atticus succeeds in demonstrating Tom’s innocence, Tom will be
sentenced because of racial prejudices and hate.
Scout and Jem
will be disappointed and disgusted by the cruelty of the white people in their community. They
will not understand why people hate each other, why people judge by the skin
colour and why people sentence an innocent man. According to them, human beings are all equal.
“If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each
other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each
other? Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand something. I think I'm
beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this
time. It's because he wants to stay inside.”
To kill a Mockingbird gives us many important teachings and
its title highlights one of them. Indeed, Atticus says that shooting
mockingbirds is a cruel act, since they do not harm us in any way. However, in
spite of that, many people kill mockingbirds. The same happens to
Tom Robinson: he did not harm any one, but people “killed” him, anyway.
“Atticus said to Jem one day, "I’d rather you shot at tin cans in
the backyard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the blue jays you
want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird."
That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something,
and I asked Miss Maudie about it. "Your father’s right," she said.
"Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They
don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one
thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a
mockingbird.”
Angelica, 4scB
HARPER LEE
Harper Lee
was born on 28th April 1926 in Monroeville (in Alabama). Her father
was a lawyer, while her mother had some mental problem (perhaps bipolarism).
She studied
Law at first at Alabama University then at Oxford University, where she started
to write for academic newspaper.
However, when
she returned to America, Harper Lee decided to abandon the study programme and
she began writing her books.
In 1949, she
moved on New York, where she met Michael Martin Brown , a Broadway compositor,
and his wife. They helped her financially,so that Harper Lee could write her
masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird,
which would published in 1960. This book had a great success; indeed, it won
the Pulitzer Prize. Moreover, in 1962, a film based on her book was made.
In 70s and 80s,
she decided to withdraw from public life.
In 2007, the
American president George W. Bush gave her Presidential
Medal of Freedom.
In 2015, she
published Go Set a Watchman. This book has the same characters of To Kill a Mockingbird, but it is set 20 years later.
On 19
February 2016, Harper Lee died.
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