Lee's first novel is a beautifully rendered account of growing up in the American south, when there would still have been veterans of the American Civil War alive, and racial tensions were at possibly their highest peak.
Scout Finch is a young girl, the daughter of a lawyer in a small southern town. That town is rocked by news of the abuse and rape of a poor young woman who accuses a crippled black man, Tom Robinson, of the crime. Scout's father takes the case and earns the enmity of many in the town; threats to his children are only curtailed by the heroism of a reclusive neighbor, Boo Radley.
Atticus Finch is one of the most attractive characters in fiction, though he is more like a little girl's fantasy of a father (don't worry, I'm not gonna get Freudian on ya) than a real man. Who can withstand this combination of wisdom, righteousness, and sharpshooting?
Scout is extremely real, from her tactlessness and fisticuffs to her affection (and occasional contempt) for her brother, Jem, and their friend, Dill.
The relationship between the children's rich and romantic fantasy life and the reality of the Robinson trial provides the spine of the novel. (Read no further if you don't want spoilers.) Atticus is master at home, supplicant at court, though certainly never, even upon losing, lessened by his relative impotence. The children spend countless hours dreaming about the terrors of Boo Radley, only to be faced with the real terrors of lies, bigotry, and death.
Boo and Tom are mirrors, white and black, both crippled; Tom passes out of the light of a calm, ordered life into the darkness of trial and imprisonment, while Boo passes from the imprisonment of his own "shy ways" into the light, even if only temporarily.
Though the analogy of the mockingbird is somewhat apt, neither of these men is completely innocent in his own undoing. Boo's history is murky, though there were almost certainly events that led to his seclusion. Tom, too, bears some responsibility; his inability to trust in Atticus's word that a new trial offers new hope led to panic, and his death.
These parallels are easily enough spotted, if you care to try, but the brilliance of TKAM is that Lee's symbolism is not intrusive. Each finely wrought character exists, has weight, unsupported by literary invention, almost as if Lee had taken photographs of real people, then pasted them into an artistic collage of symbolism and allusion without their knowledge.
Some stories rattle around in my brain like Jacob Marley's chains, no matter how I may try to hide my head under the covers. I've never learned to snuggle up to James Joyce's "The Dead," have a nice chat with EB White's Charlotte's Web, or poke Katherine Paterson's Bridge to Terabithia when it hogs the blankets. These stories are too elemental, too frightening for me with my sad foolish fear of death.
All of this is what makes my relationship to To Kill a Mockingbird so fragile, and so precious to me. In Scout, I recognize myself, not as I was, but as I still am--the frightened child who cannot hope to understand the complexities of the human condition.
Most people will call Harper Lee's novel a masterpiece. They will label it calmly and then wander off, unfazed by the tragedy that death comes when we're sitting down to dinner, that it comes to innocent men and to guilty alike, and that there are Boo Radleys, but they are lost to us.
My husband came upon me one day as I wept over this novel. I was only
twenty pages in. He asked me why I was crying, and I said, "I don't want to reach the end." So he asked me why I was reading it, and I said, "Because it may turn out differently, this time."
I know. You're thinking I'm nuts (you may be right). But there is something sneaky, something subversive, to Lee's tragedy. No character is changed by it. There is no transfiguration, no slip into pity, no ascension to greatness; there is only endurance. The characters do not require crisis, it is not a fundamental plot device to aid the novel to fruition.
Tom Robinson's death isn't the point. He dies with a whimper, off camera (as it were) and causes nary a shudder. He is old news--tragic but disconnected--to these characters shouldering bravely on.
TKAM isn't about nobility, but futility. Other characters in other novels get to grow in inhuman ways. But Lee is acknowledging the beauty of implacability. It's not "that which does not kill you will only make you stronger," it's "that which does not kill you does not kill you. Rejoice."
If I sound as if I'm gushing, I am. I can't help it. Sometimes, ya just gotta gush.
Two final notes before I shut up. This is filed under "biography/autobiography" which is not the correct category; this is glorious fiction, though certainly with autobiographical moments.
Also, the film version, though almost lightweight and certainly more heavy-handed, is an exceptionally fine adaptation of the novel and well worth a view.
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