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According to Scout's school gossip (in Chapter 17 ), "nobody was quite sure how many children were on the (Ewell) property." Some thought there were six, and others said nine. Scout only knew...
The reader can assume that Mayella is saying that she has "seven" siblings, which means that Bob Ewell has eight children in all. Unfortunately, Scout only mentions Mayella and Burris among...
To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by the American author Harper Lee. It was published in July 1960 and became instantly successful. In the United States, it is widely read in high schools and middle schools. To Kill a Mockingbird has become a classic of modern American literature; a year after its release, it won the Pulitzer Prize.
- Harper Lee
- 1960
Nov 23, 2023 · A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel—a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s.
- Introduction
- Author Biography
- Plot Summary
- Characters
- Media Adaptations
- Themes
- Topics For Further Study
- Style
- Historical Context
- Compare & Contrast
When To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960, it brought its young first-time author, Harper Lee, a startling amount of attention and notoriety. The novel replays three key years in the life of Scout Finch, the young daughter of an Alabama town's principled lawyer. The work was an instant sensation, becoming a best-seller and winning the Pulitz...
Although Harper Lee has long maintained that To Kill a Mockingbird is not autobiographical, critics have often remarked upon the striking similarities between the author's own childhood and that of her youthful heroine, Scout Finch. Nelle Harper Lee was born in 1926, the youngest of three children of Amasa Coleman Lee, a lawyer who practiced in the...
Part One
Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbirddepicts the life of its young narrator, Jean Louise "Scout" Finch, in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, in the mid-1930s. Scout opens the novel as a grown woman reflecting back on key events in her childhood. The novel covers a two-year period, beginning when Scout is six and ending when she is eight. She lives with her father, Atticus, a widowed lawyer, and her older brother, Jem (short for Jeremy). Their black housekeeper, Calpurnia, tends to the children...
Part Two
The family's involvement in Tom Robinson's trial dominates Part Two of the novel. One personal inconvenience of the trial is the arrival of Aunt Alexandra, Atticus's sister, who comes to tend to the family. Scout finds her presence unwelcome because Aunt Alexandra disapproves of her tomboyish dress and activities and tries to make Scout wear dresses and attend women's socials. The time for the trial arrives, and Atticus guards the jail door the night Tom Robinson is brought to Maycomb. The ch...
Aunt Alexandra
SeeAlexandra Finch Hancock
Miss Maudie Atkinson
Maudie Atkinson is a strong, supportive woman who lives across the street from the Finches. A forthright speaker, she never condescends to Jem and Scout, but speaks to them as equals. It is Miss Maudie who affirms that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird, since "they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us." A respected community member who often teasingly reproaches the children, Miss Maudie nevertheless has a impish streak: she likes to quote scripture back to conservative religio...
Mr. Avery
A good-natured if somewhat coarse neighbor of the Finches who helps fight the fire at Miss Maudie's house at risk to his own life.
To Kill a Mockingbird was adapted as a film by Horton Foote, starring Gregory Peckand Mary Badham, Universal, 1962; available from MCA/Universal Home Video.It was also adapted as a full-length stage play by Christopher Sergel, and was published as Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird: A Fulllength Play,Dramatic Publishing Co., 1970.Prejudice and Tolerance
Comprising the main portion of the book's examination of racism and its effects are the underlying themes of prejudice vs. tolerance: how people feel about and respond to differences in others. At one end of the spectrum are people who fear and hate, such as the members of the jury who convict an innocent man of rape because of his race. Atticus and Calpurnia, on the other hand, show understanding and sympathy towards those who might be different or less fortunate. When Scout brings a poor cl...
Guilt and Innocence
Closely linked to these themes of prejudice are issues of guilt and innocence, for the same ignorance that creates racist beliefs underlies assumptionsof guilt. The most obvious instance is the case of Tom Robinson: the jury's willingness to believe what Atticus calls "the evil assumption … that allNegroes are basically immoral beings" leads them to convict an innocent man. Boo Radley, unknown by a community who has not seen or heard from him in fifteen years, is similarly presumed to be a mo...
Knowledge and Ignorance
Because a lack of understanding leads to prejudice and false assumptions of guilt, themes of ignorance and knowledge also play a large role in the novel. Lee seems to suggest that children have a natural instinct for tolerance and understanding; only as they grow older do they learn to react to differences with fear and disdain. For example, Scout is confused when one of Dolphus Raymond's mixed-race children is pointed out to her. The child looks "all Negro" to Scout, who wonders why it matte...
Research the 1930s trials of the Scottsboro Boys and compare how the justice system worked in this case to the trial of Tom Robinson.Explore the government programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal" and explain how some of the characters in To Kill a Mockingbirdcould have been helped by them.Investigate the various groups involved in the Civil Rights Movementof the 1950s and 1960s and compare their programs to the community supports found in Lee's imaginary town of Maycomb.Point of View
The most outstanding aspect of To Kill a Mockingbird'sconstruction lies in its distinctive narrative point of view. Scout Finch, who narrates in the first person ("I"), is nearly six years old when the novel opens. The story, however, is recalled by the adult Scout; this allows her first-person narrative to contain adult language and adult insights yet still maintain the innocent outlook of a child. The adult perspective also adds a measure of hindsight to the tale, allowing for a deeper exam...
Setting
The setting of To Kill a Mockingbird is another big factor in the story, for the action never leaves the town of Maycomb, Alabama. Maycomb is described variously as "an old town," "an ancient town," and "a tired old town," suggesting a conservative place that is steeped in tradition and convention. Scout's description of the local courthouse reinforces this impression. The building combines large Greek-style pillars—the only remnants from the original building that burned years ago—with the e...
Symbolism
As the title of the novel implies, the mockingbird serves as an important symbol throughout the narrative. When the children receive guns for Christmas, Atticus tells them it's all right to shoot at blue jays, but "it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." As Miss Maudie Atkinson explains, it would be thoughtlessly cruel to kill innocent creatures that "don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy." The mockingbirds are silent as Atticus takes to the street to shoot the rabid dog, and Scout des...
Civil Rights in the 1950s
Despite the end of slavery almost a century before To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960 (President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863), African Americans were still denied many of their basic rights. Although Lee sets her novel in the South of the 1930s, conditions were little improved by the early 1960s in America. The Civil Rights movement was just taking shape in the 1950s, and its principles were beginning to find a voice in American courtrooms and the law...
1930s: During the Great Depression, unemployment rose as high as 25%; the New Deal program of government-sponsored relief leads to a deficit in the federal budget.1960: After a decade of record-hig...1930s: Schools are racially segregated; emphasis in the classroom was on rote learning of the basics.1960: Although backed up by force at times, school integration laws were being enforced; the 195...1930s: Only property owners who were white and male could serve on juries.1960: Women and minorities could now serve on juries; while the Supreme Court ruled that eliminating jurors from duty on th...1930s: A big trial serves as a entertainment event for the whole town and a child who has been to the movies is unusual.1960: Television was becoming the dominant form of popular entertainment, whi...Apr 8, 2015 · Harper Lee based To Kill a Mockingbird ’s Dill on Truman Capote. Lee modeled the neighbor boy Dill after Capote. As a child, Capote—the author of In Cold Blood and Breakfast At Tiffany’s ...
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Other Voices, Other Rooms, and To Kill a Mockingbird both have children as major characters and are similar in addressing themes of childhood, coming of age, and parental dynamics, along with issues of gender and race.
