July 20th, 2007
Review – To Kill A Mockingbird
To Kill A Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
The most amazing thing about this book is that even though it is fiction written more than forty years ago about events that took place more than seventy years ago, it is as relevant today as it was during the Civil Rights struggles of the late 1950′s. One need only to read about the Jena Six to realize that we have not come as far as we might like to think.
The cover of the book says this is a story of “growing up” and “human dignity” and this is true. Harper Lee described it as a love story and this is true as well. But it is also a story of hatred and not just racial hatred. It is the story of the hatred those who are more refined feel for those below them; the hatred of those who are poor for those who are even poorer; the hatred of the poorest whites for the blacks who they feel are below them. The lowest white man in town, who is constantly drunk, lives on welfare, mistreats his children and forces them to pick through the town dump for food still expects to believed over the word of a hard-working, honest black man. And when someone refuses to believe his lies, his anger knows no bounds. It is a story of not just racial prejudice but class prejudice as well.
But beneath all this hatred is a story of love and innocence and of growing up. Growing up deep in the South during the heart of the Depression, Scout, her brother Jem, and their friend Dill learn a lesson about the hearts of men, that although there is darkness in men’s souls that there is also a brightness that can be reached.
Harper Lee has written a beautiful and believable story. None of the characters are one-dimensional stereotypes, rather they all feel like real people. When Scout and Jem are welcomed at Calpurnia’s church, when Atticus stands in front of the sheriff’s office to protect Tom, when Jem must read to Mrs. Dubose as punishment for destroying her garden, when Scout, Jem, and Dill try to coax Boo Radley out of his house… each of these events build a complex story of childhood and innocence and losing innocence. At the end of the story, Scout says, “Atticus, he was real nice…” and Atticus replies, “most people are, Scout, when you finally see them,” and that is the ultimate moral of this story.
Tags: book review, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Jena Six
