To Kill A Mockingbird
I bought and read To Kill A Mockingbird during a month long trip in Rishikesh, India. It was an intriguing read full of characters you really felt for, as well as being a brilliantly written, thought provoking story of childhood and what we perceive in our own imaginations and the reality of the circumstances which we find ourselves in.
"She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen and by watching her I began to think there was some skill involved in being a girl" Scout Finch (Page 127, Part two).
The novel mainly consists of the significant elements of Scout Finches childhood growing up in the 1930's along with her brother Jem and their father Atticus Finch. The events are seen through the seven year old's eyes, her first love, her childhood games, taunting the Radley's-especially making up stories about Boo Radley, who is a complete recluse in Maycomb a small town in deep south Alabama. The book is full of dry humour childlike thoughts, feelings and beliefs that were present around the time of the novels time span of the 1930's.
Their widowed father is a lawyer- Atticus Finch a fifty something greatly respected man in Maycomb society. But when he represents Tom Robinson a local black man convicted of the rape of Mayella Ewell-a 19-year-old from a poor renowned family of seven, the town turns against the Finches.
Mayella is described in the book as "uneducated and ignorant". She is motherless, and even though her father Bob Ewell is a farmer, they live out by the local town dump, and he is a renowned drunkard and layabout, whilst none of her siblings go to school as they help out at home.
The court case takes up a third of the book and is the most memorable of Harper Lee's novel. The morality of the court case and the racial injustice of black people in the deep south of America is something very dear to Lee, as the book is loosely based on her own observations of growing up when an event not unlike the books, happened in her own town aged 10 years old.
It is clear that the morality of representing any man, whether they be black or white, and most importantly wrongly convicted and innocent of the crime they are deemed to have committed is crucial to anybody's conscience. Something Atticus makes sure Jem and Scout learn from what their father is seeking to be a symbol of.
Atticus is the only lawyer to represent Robinson fully out of his duty to his own morals and personal integrity, his personal morality, that every man has the right to be defended. The book itself is held in high respects by lawyers in modern society ever since its publication in 1960 as the pinnacle of a good and decent lawyer.
"If you shouldn't be defendin' him, then why are you doin' it? For a number of reasons', said Atticus. The main one is, if I didn't I couldn't hold up my head in town, I couldn't represent this county in the legislature, I couldn't even tell you or Jem not to do something again"...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" (Page 83/84)
What is seen through a child's eyes will stay with them throughout the rest of their life. Therefore throughout the novel, Scouts morals are marked out, lessons learnt for the remainder of her youth, throughout her teenage years and all through her adulthood. She learns about what happened with the court case and in retrospect what it meant to experience this kind of racial injustice and what her father really did for the cause.
Scout is our heroine, she is described in the book as a tomboy-wearing dirty clothes, not girly clothing. Her hair is short and rough looking- she is not a lady. Her language is alternative to normal girls, she is rough handed, having punch ups with boys in the playground and even her own cousin, Francis who calls her father a "nigger lover".
Her aunt comes to live with the Finches a third of the way through because the house needs an authoritative hand and a womanly touch; aside from Calpurnia the black cook and maid for the household, to make Scout more presentable and lady like.
The book was written in 1960 when the African-American civil rights movement was on topic in America around the same time Martin Luther King Jr. was giving powerful and inspirational speeches.
The film adaptation was made only 2 years after the publication of the novel, it later won 3 Oscars. One for Gregory Peck's performance as Atticus Finch and one most importantly for best adapted screenplay.
The fact that the novel could transfer so easily to the big screen was important for the overall success of the book being implemented in people's minds and popular culture for future reference and every English class at school.
The reality that the novel and subsequent film fuses in people's minds is circumstantial for the universal morals; of a lawyer going against the curve of normal southern roots, by representing a black man. Of a single father trying to bring up his children the best he can in a town full of violent characters and moral ambiguity.
In the end it's your conscience which is your driving force and what drives Scout's morals throughout the novel.
"She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen and by watching her I began to think there was some skill involved in being a girl" Scout Finch (Page 127, Part two).
The novel mainly consists of the significant elements of Scout Finches childhood growing up in the 1930's along with her brother Jem and their father Atticus Finch. The events are seen through the seven year old's eyes, her first love, her childhood games, taunting the Radley's-especially making up stories about Boo Radley, who is a complete recluse in Maycomb a small town in deep south Alabama. The book is full of dry humour childlike thoughts, feelings and beliefs that were present around the time of the novels time span of the 1930's.
 |
| Gregory Peck as Atticus and Brock Peters as Tom Robinson |
Their widowed father is a lawyer- Atticus Finch a fifty something greatly respected man in Maycomb society. But when he represents Tom Robinson a local black man convicted of the rape of Mayella Ewell-a 19-year-old from a poor renowned family of seven, the town turns against the Finches.
Mayella is described in the book as "uneducated and ignorant". She is motherless, and even though her father Bob Ewell is a farmer, they live out by the local town dump, and he is a renowned drunkard and layabout, whilst none of her siblings go to school as they help out at home.
The court case takes up a third of the book and is the most memorable of Harper Lee's novel. The morality of the court case and the racial injustice of black people in the deep south of America is something very dear to Lee, as the book is loosely based on her own observations of growing up when an event not unlike the books, happened in her own town aged 10 years old.
It is clear that the morality of representing any man, whether they be black or white, and most importantly wrongly convicted and innocent of the crime they are deemed to have committed is crucial to anybody's conscience. Something Atticus makes sure Jem and Scout learn from what their father is seeking to be a symbol of.
Atticus is the only lawyer to represent Robinson fully out of his duty to his own morals and personal integrity, his personal morality, that every man has the right to be defended. The book itself is held in high respects by lawyers in modern society ever since its publication in 1960 as the pinnacle of a good and decent lawyer.
"If you shouldn't be defendin' him, then why are you doin' it? For a number of reasons', said Atticus. The main one is, if I didn't I couldn't hold up my head in town, I couldn't represent this county in the legislature, I couldn't even tell you or Jem not to do something again"...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" (Page 83/84)
What is seen through a child's eyes will stay with them throughout the rest of their life. Therefore throughout the novel, Scouts morals are marked out, lessons learnt for the remainder of her youth, throughout her teenage years and all through her adulthood. She learns about what happened with the court case and in retrospect what it meant to experience this kind of racial injustice and what her father really did for the cause.
Scout is our heroine, she is described in the book as a tomboy-wearing dirty clothes, not girly clothing. Her hair is short and rough looking- she is not a lady. Her language is alternative to normal girls, she is rough handed, having punch ups with boys in the playground and even her own cousin, Francis who calls her father a "nigger lover".
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| Jem and Scout (played by Philip Alford and Mary Badham) |
The book was written in 1960 when the African-American civil rights movement was on topic in America around the same time Martin Luther King Jr. was giving powerful and inspirational speeches.
The film adaptation was made only 2 years after the publication of the novel, it later won 3 Oscars. One for Gregory Peck's performance as Atticus Finch and one most importantly for best adapted screenplay.
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| To Kill A Mockingbird's film adaptation in 1962 |
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| Atticus and Scout |
In the end it's your conscience which is your driving force and what drives Scout's morals throughout the novel.
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