To Kill A Mockingbird

By Harper Lee

Introduction: Harper Lee’s novel is one of the best-selling books in the nation’s history. Within one year after publication, To Kill A Mockingbird had sold 500,000 copies. By 1992 18 million copies of paperback editions alone had sold. It has never been out of print in 35 years. To Kill A Mockingbird is frequently cited by readers as the book that has made the biggest different in their lives. Its influence has been enduring because it allows the reader, through the lives of children, ‘to walk around in the shoes’ of people who are different from ourselves. The novel challenges our stereotypes – of the Southerner, of the African American, the eccentric, the child, the young lady.

Historical Background: There are many parallels between the trial of Tom Robinson in To Kill A Mockingbird and one of the most notorious series of trials in the nation’s history, The Scottsboro Trials. On March 25, 1931, a freight train was stopped In Paint Rock, a tiny community in northern Alabama, and nine young African American men who had been riding the rails were arrested. As two white women - one underage - descended from the freight cars, they accused the men of raping them on the train. Within a month the first man was found guilty and sentenced to death. There followed a series of sensational trials condemning the other men solely on the testimony of the older woman, a known prostitute, who was attempting to avoid prosecution under the Mann Act, prohibiting taking minor across state lines for immoral purposes, like prostitution. Although none of the accused were executed, a number remained on death row for many years. The case was not settled until 1976 with the pardon of the last of the Scottsboro defendants.

Brief Character Descriptions:

Atticus Finch- Atticus is the widowed father of Jem and Scout. He is an agile attorney who is respected by the townspeople. He also lives his life as a lesson to his children.

Scout Finch- Jean Louise Finch is the narrator and main character of the novel. She likes to dress like a boy and experience almost everything (note the cursing spell she goes through).

Jem Finch- Jem is Scout's brother and is very protective of her. He often presents a balance for Scout and Dill's naivete. The trial of Tom Robinson facilitates his loss of innocence as he grows from a boy to a young man.

Boo Radley- Arthur "Boo" Radley is the Finch's neighbor who never comes out of the house. Jem, Scout and Dill innocently torment Boo with their childlike antics. Their stories have evolved so that they believe he is insane and a murderer of his family. He surprises the children in the end.

Tom Robinson- Tom is a middle aged, black man who Atticus defends in court against charges of rape.

Bob and Mayella Ewell- They are the town "white trash." Bob instigates the trouble and stirs the town to vengeance against Tom Robinson.

Dill- Charles Baker Harris is Mrs. Rachel nephew from Meridian, Mississippi who becomes best friends with Scout and Jem. He visits every summer and joins in on the adventures.

Calpurnia- Cal is the cook, maid, and mother figure of the Finch Family. She provides Scout and Jem with lessons about life that are from the

Aunt Alexandria- Atticus's nosy, yet only looking out for the best of the children, sister. She comes to live with them in an effort to make things easier.

Mrs. Dubose- She is a neighbor who torments the children as they walk past her house. She is seen as courageous by Atticus as she fights an addiction to morphine so she may die free.

Themes

Prejudice: Perhaps the most obvious theme .

Example #1: Tom Robinson is a poor black man during the depression who is accused of rape even though he is proven innocent by Atticus.

Example #2: Scout and Jem are the recipients of prejudice and racism when Lula chastises Calpurnia for bring white children to a church reserved only for the black community of Maycomb County. By association, Cal experiences the rejection and racism as well.

Example #3: Walter Cunningham receives his share of prejudicial treatment by many members of the community because he comes from a farming and lower class family.

Courage: moral, physical, mental

Example #1: Atticus Finch shows an inordinate amount of moral courage by defending Tom Robinson even though he knows he is defending a man already found guilty by the town. He also displays physical courage by shooting Tim Johnson the rabid dog as it wanders the street.

Example #2: Mrs. Dubose's courage comes in the form of a physical and mental battle to rid her mind and body of an addiction to morphine. Atticus says she is the most courageous person he knows.

Example #3: Jem Finch's love for his sister is obvious when he portrays his physical courage to protect Scout from an attacker in the woods the night of the Halloween pageant.

Additional themes: equal justice, social ostracism, maturation and heroism

Setting: Set in Maycomb County, Alabama, To Kill a Mockingbird provides a reader with a vivid image of life in a small southern town during the era of The Depression.

"Maycomb, some twenty miles east of Finch's Landing, was the county seat of Maycomb County."

"Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square.”

“Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer's day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square..."

"People moved slowly then. They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of the stores around it, took their time about everything. A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County. But it was a time of vague optimism for some of the people: Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself."