To Kill a Mockingbird

English Book Review – To Kill A Mockingbird.

INDEX * Introduction Of The Author – Madam Nelle Harper Lee * Genre Of The Story * A Brief Outline Of The Story * Pen Potrait Of The Favourite Character * Description Of The Most Interesting Event * Theme Of The Story * Critical Analysis Of The Story

Nelle Lee – Then

Nelle Lee – Now
Madam Nelle Harper Lee
Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926 in Monroeville, a small Alabama town. Lee, a descendant of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, is the daughter of Amasa Coleman and Frances Fincher Lee. Lee was educated in the public schools of Monroeville, and was a childhood friend of Truman Capote, author of In Cold Blood, The Glass Harp, and Breakfast at Tiffany's. After high school, she attended Huntington College in Montgomery, Alabama from 1944 to 1945. Four years later, Lee went to the University of Alabama to study law. While there, Lee contributed to several campus publications. She left the university six months before completing her degree and struck out for New York and a literary career. During the 1950s Lee worked as a reservations clerk before she gave up the job to focus intensely on her writing. A literary agent who read her manuscript of three essays and two short stories encouraged her to expand one of the stories into a novel. This work became her first and last novel, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960). This work won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as the Alabama Library Association Award and the Brotherhood Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. In 1962 she received the Bestsellers' paperback of the year award. Lee's novel remained on the bestseller list for over eighty weeks. To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into ten languages and adapted for film by Horton Foote. The movie was released in 1962 and starred Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. Since the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960, Lee has contributed a few nonfiction pieces to national magazines, but has written nothing else of great note.
Genre Of The Story
GENRE : LITERATURE AND FICTION.
It is impossible to categorize this book into one genre as it could be a romance. It also could be a comedy, such as the funny moments when Jem torments Boo, or a drama since the trial of Tom is a serious event. It is rather a historical novel, a classic piece of literature.
Brief Outline Of the Story
To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel about growing up during the Great Depression in the United States of America. The setting, Maycomb could be described as one of the most boring towns in America. The same families have dwelled in the town for generations. One such family is the Finch family. Widowed Atticus lives with his son Jem, daughter Scout and a housekeeper Calpurnia in the Alabama town of Maycomb. Atticus, a single parent tries to raise his children with honor and respects their individualism. One summer, Jem and Scout meet a boy named Dill, who is in town to spend his summer. After initial hiccups, the trio become friends and act out stories together. Soon Dill is wonderstruck by the spooky house, Radley Place, where Arthur Radley has lived for many years. Dill and Jem begin relentless campaign to draw the ‘lunatic’ out of his home. Their perilious quest that included a play that details Boo’s life bears no fruit and Atticus forbids them from troubling Boo anymore. Next summer Dill returns, only to leave when fall comes. Scout begins school. Jem and Scout go to school together. On their way to school, they pass the haunted Radley house. While the house is a terrifying place for them, their curiosity pushes them towards the house. They find odd gifts in the knothole in the tree supposedly kept by Boo for them. Gifts keep pouring on the children until Boo’s brother Nathan, fills the hole with cement. After a few unfortunate events, like the fire in Miss Maudie’s house, Scout begins to wonder if Boo might actually have a humane side to him. Later, being the good man that he is, Atticus takes up a case that affects him personally. When a black man, Tom Robinson is accused of beating and raping a white woman, Mayella Ewell, most of the country is immediately convinced that Tom is guilty of the crime, and begins to view Atticus with disgust for actually trying to defend a black man. Atticus’s decision results in Jem and Scout being abused at school by the other white children. At the trial, Atticus provides clear evidence that the accusers, Mayella and her father Bob, are fibbing and the scars on her face are in fact inflicted by her father. Yet, despite all evidence pointing to Tom’s innocence, the jury convicts him as it was still impossible in the racist Maycomb society for a black man to attain victory over a white. In the aftermath of the trial, Tom is shot dead while trying to escape prison and Jem’s faith in justice is shaken; he doubts the entire system of justice. Even after the trial has died down, Bob Ewell resorts to revenge as he feels that Atticus and the judge have shamed him. True to his word, he tries to break into the judge’s home and attacks Jem and Scout with a knife on Halloween night, breaking Jem’s arm and almost killing Scout, but Boo comes to their rescue, the struggle resulting in the death of Ewell. The sheriff, Heck Tate, soon arrives to the crime scene, but in order to protect Boo, insists that Bob tripped over a tree root and fell on his own knife. Atticus, however thinks differently. Atticus thinks that Jem killed Ewell and starts planning his legal defense. Tate eventually convinces Atticus that Jem wasn’t the one who did it, and it would be a sin to drag Boo through a court case. Scout walks Boo home at his request, and then looks at her neighborhood with new eyes from the Radley front porch, thinking about how recent events would have appeared to Boo from this vantage point. Scout feels as though Boo has actually become a human being to her at last. With this realization, Scout learns that no matter their differences or peculiarities, the people of the world and of Maycomb County are all people. She realizes that once you get to know them, most people are good and kind no matter what they seem like on the outside.

The Book – To Kill A Mockingbird

Movie – To Kill A Mockingbird
Pen Potrait Of The Favourite Character – Atticus Finch

As one of the most prominent citizens in Maycomb during the Great Depression, Atticus is well off in a time of widespread poverty. An attorney by profession, Atticus is a morally upright man who strives to deal with everyone fairly. He is sometimes overly optimistic, but his hope in mankind and role as the town well-wisher make him an idol. A widower, he is a single parent to two children and with a sense of humor has instilled in his children, a strong sense of morality and justice. He is one of the few residents of Maycomb committed to racial equality. When he agrees to defend Tom Robinson, a black man charged with raping a white woman, he faces the wrath of the white community. With his strongly held beliefs, wisdom, and empathy, Atticus is easily known as the novel’s backbone.
One of the things that his longtime friend Miss Maudie admires about him is that "'Atticus Finch is the same in his house as he is on the public streets.'"
His children call him "Atticus" rather than "Dad," and he was originally known as "One-Shot Finch" because of his skill with the rifle. Though always busy with his work, he does manage to find the time and patience to explain the secrets of human nature to his children. When Scout comes home from school, upset at being scolded for already knowing how to read, Atticus teaches her to compromise with the situation. Thus, Atticus teaches his daughter, the manner in which one conducts oneself in public and at the same time emphasizes on one’s own decisions.
Ironically, though Atticus is a heroic figure in the novel and a respected man in Maycomb, neither Jem nor Scout idolizes him at the beginning of the novel. Both are embarrassed that he is older than other fathers and that he doesn’t hunt or fish. But Atticus’s wise parenting, which he sums up by saying, “Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back at him,” ultimately wins their respect. Atticus believes that shielding his kids in the short term doesn’t benefit them in the long run. This becomes especially clear when he thinks Jem is the one who stabbed Bob Ewell. His reassuring presence is highlighted in the last few lines of the final chapter: "He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning." He believes that real courage is not manifested in "a man with a gun in his hand".

In conclusion, Atticus Finch is an ideal model of a good citizen, a skillful and honest lawyer and an understanding father. His personality urged people to choose him as their representative even though they sometimes criticize him for doing the unpleasant things that must be done.

Description Of The Most Interesting Event
The trial is the most gripping, and in some ways the most important, dramatic sequence in To Kill a Mockingbird. Tom Robinson, a black man is on trial for allegedly raping a white woman, Mayella Ewell. People from all over the county flood the town to appearance in the courtroom. As the proceeding begin, the prosecutor, Mr. Gilmer, questions Heck Tate, who recounts how, on the night of November 21, Bob Ewell urged him to go to the Ewell house and told him that his daughter Mayella had been raped. When Tate got there, he found Mayella bruised and beaten, and she told him that Tom Robinson had raped her. Then, Atticus cross-examines the witness, who admits that no doctor was called and tells him that Mayella’s bruises were concentrated on the right side of her face. Tate leaves the stand, and Bob Ewell is called.

Bob Ewell testifies that on that evening he was coming out of the woods when he heard his daughter yelling. When he reached the house, he looked in the window and saw Tom Robinson raping her. Robinson fled, and Ewell ran for the sheriff. Atticus’s cross-examination is brief; he asks Mr. Ewell why no doctor was called. Bob Ewell, the jury sees, is left-handed and a left-handed man would be more likely to leave bruises on the right side of a girl’s face. Atticus carefully plants the seed that Mr. Ewell himself could've beaten Mayella.
Mayella takes the stand next. Atticus asks Tom to stand up so that Mayella may identify him and as he does, Scout notices that Tom's left arm is useless and he could not have committed the crime in the described way.

Atticus calls only one witness, Tom Robinson. Tom Robinson tries to use his good right hand to put his bad left one on the Bible, but it keeps falling off, and the judge tells him not to bother. Tom tells the court that Mayella asked him to kiss her saying, "'what her papa do to her don't count,'" which informs the whole town that Bob Ewell sexually abuses his daughter. He further tells the court that Bob called his own child a "goddamn whore." Tom is careful to never directly accuse Mayella of lying, repeatedly saying, "'she's mistaken in her mind.'"

Atticus sits down, and while Mr. Gilmer is getting up to question the witness, Mr. Link Deas suddenly stands up and vouches for Tom’s character to the whole courtroom, sparking Judge Taylor’s wrath. Mr. Gilmer continues and tries to make Tom’s running away from the scene of crime into evidence of his guilt but Tom emphasizes that he ran basically because he knew most white people would assume he was guilty no matter what.
Soon Atticus is seen making his closing remarks. He says that the case shouldn’t have even come to trial, because the prosecution doesn’t have any medical evidence that rape took place; Mayella’s accusations are motivated by guilt over her desire for Tom Robinson; Mayella was beaten by a man who led with his left, and Mr. Ewell is left-handed while Tom is not and requests for a fair trial.

Mr. Tate calls the court to order and brings Tom Robinson back into the room.
The jury comes in, and announces their unanimous verdict: guilty.
As Atticus walks down the aisle alone, the African-Americans in the balcony silently stand up to honor him.

Atticus Finch

Jem and Scout
Theme Of The Story
The story of the mockingbird recited by Atticus is linked to the theme of the novel. It is considered a sin to kill a mockingbird, since it is a harmless bird which only sings to please others. Boo Radley and Tom Robinson are also harmless people. By letting Tom die, the sin of killing a mockingbird has been committed but by not revealing the facts of Boo’s heroism in rescuing the children, the sin is avoided, and Boo is left to his seclusion. Tom’s death is a defeat of justice and an insult to humanity.
The most important theme of To Kill a Mockingbird is the moral nature of human beings, whether people are essentially good or evil. The novel approaches this question through Scout and Jem’s transition from a perspective of childhood innocence, in which they assume that people are good because they have never seen evil, to an adult perspective, in which they have seen evil and have understood worldly affairs.
Shortly after the novel begins, Scout starts her first year at school. The educational system in Maycomb leaves much to be desired. Scout is ahead of her classmates because Atticus has taught her to read and write, and Calpurnia has even taught her script. However, once her teacher discovers this, she punishes Scout and tells her not to learn anything else at home. This is the first clear conflict between institutionalized education and education in the home.
Throughout the novel, Atticus urges his children to try to step into other people's shoes to understand how they see the world. Whenever Scout doesn't understand Jem, Atticus encourages her to try to understand how he might be feeling. Usually, Scout finds this advice helpful, and her attempts to gain insight into other people's perspectives on life and the world broaden her moral education and social understanding.
Obviously, racism is a major theme of the novel. During the Depression era, blacks were still highly subjugated members of society. Blacks were not permitted to mingle with whites in public settings, as exemplified in the courthouse physical separation of races and in the clearly distinct black and white areas of town. Moreover, things like intermarriage were almost unheard of, and sorely looked down upon.
Tom Robinson is convicted purely because he is a black man and his accuser is white. The evidence is so powerfully in his favor, that race is clearly the single defining factor in the jury's decision.
Racism, Education, Society, Violence, are just the major themes. A lot of themes blend together to create the “To Kill A Mockingbird” like it is.
Critical Analysis
This book is a classic that can be read by people of all ages. It sends out a strong political message in its own childish, humorous way. A lot of dimensions go into making the novel a winner. However, the amusing escapades of children are scattered. The characters of the minor roles in the novel are a bit sketchy too. The trial scene drags on for 4-5 chapters, slows the pace of the novel. The mob was drama at its best. It also demonstrated the depth of Atticus’ love for his children, when, after it was over, “produced his handkerchief, gave his face a going-over and blew his nose violently.
The appearance of Boo Radley was probably meant as a surprise, but it was actually fairly predictable, although no less satisfying. I particularly enjoyed the relationship between Jem and Scout. As Jem grows older, he wishes to spend less and less time with Scout. He doesn’t want to be seen with her in public, and he doesn’t want to play with her anymoreThat tiny little sub-plot was very charming.
In summary, I enjoyed the novel for its humor and its endearing characters.