It actually angers me that To Kill A Mockingbird has been banned. It’s a book about intolerance, blind hatred, and mob rule; and intolerance, blind hatred and mob rule are what bans books. If book banners read this book they wouldn’t be so quick to ban. But they, doubtless, haven’t read the book. They just hear that the word "n1gger" appears and that there is a rape trial and they start organizing the burning.
To Kill a Mockingbird tells two stories. The first part of the book is concerned with Scout (the main character,) her brother Jem, their visiting neighbor Dill and the terrifying Boo Radley. According to neighborhood legend Boo Radley is insane and once stabbed his father in the leg with a pair of scissors. Not that the kids have ever actually seen Boo Radley, but the legend is quite clear on him. However, the kids eventually have to face Boo and they discover that he is no more dangerous than they are, he’s just retarded and friendless. Had Harper Lee stopped here she would have had a lovely intermediate novel, but that wasn’t her point.
The second part of the novel deals with the case Scout’s lawyer father is arguing. It seems that Mayella Ewell (described as white trash) has claimed that Tom Robinson (described as honest black, but this is the South in the 40’s) tried to rape her. Tom swears that she latched onto him, but he didn’t touch her. You know all the way through that Tom is innocent of everything but being black, but the case stirs up a lot of racial resentment (this is where "n1gger" comes in.)
In this novel, the main characters confront their prejudice no less than four times. In the two examples above, when the housekeeper (who is black) takes the kids to her church one Sunday, and when Jem is sentenced to read to Mrs. Dubose. (Jem earns this punishment for trying to kill her Snow-On-the-Mountain[flowers], but he finds out that the reason for the reading wasn’t so she could listen to him read, but so she could break her morphine addiction. Mrs. Dubose is on morphine because she has cancer and at the time it was the only effective painkiller.) And the prejudice they confront is not just what they’ve learned from personal experience, but the deep seated societal prejudice that most people can’t see when it’s in front of them (like when they’re trying to ban books they haven’t read.)
If you have not read this book, pick up a copy. It is deceptively light and a really fun read. The prose is clear and the kids all talk like kids (albeit very smart kids.) When they’re trying to make peace with Boo Radley they leave him a note asking him "real politely to come out sometimes and tell us what he does in there--we said we wouldn’t hurt him and we’d buy him an ice cream." It also has a strong message the transcends the racial tension of the 60’s. And if you really don’t have 5 or 6 hours to spend with an excellent book then watch the movie starring Gregory Peck. The parts I‘ve seen look pretty good.
"Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird."
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