"Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was Atticus' advice to Scout and Jim, before the onset of African American Tom Robinson's trial for the alleged rape of a white woman in a town in the Deep South, in the United States in the 1930s. A work of genius, of pure perfection, the best book I have ever read.

On every single level, this book is flawless.

Thank you Harper Lee.

FIVE STAR READ... 12 out of 12!!!!!!!

2010 and 2011 read

It's nearly criminal that I've taught To Kill a Mockingbird for so long and read it so many times, and yet I haven't written a review for Goodreads. But this is the year that I'm writing a review for every book I read, so a To Kill a Mockingbird review must be posted.
To say that this novel is a timeless classic is greatly cliche, I know, but there is so much that continues to reverberate to today. Reading Mockingbird makes me feel as if life can be simpler even today amid the hustle and busy of modern-day technology.
As an educator, I believe that To Kill a Mockingbird embodies everything that modern education stands for through the characters of Atticus and Scout Finch. The lessons that Atticus teaches to his children go beyond the classroom, which didn’t quite live up to young Scout’s expectations. These lessons are the moral life lessons preparing Scout and her brother, Jem, for adult life when issues such as racism, discrimination, and cruelty are part of a daily routine. This education prepares the children to be good people, wise as well as intelligent, and this is what matters when they have the power of knowledge. Atticus is not only a father but also a leader who guides by example. This is evident to his children and the townspeople when he commits to a job that no one else wants to do, defending Tom Robinson. He does this not only because he is the lawyer appointed but because he is guided by integrity and his moral conscience. He is courageous and empathetic, serving as a role model to his children and others willing to learn the lessons he teaches.
While many texts from the high school canon teach valuable lessons to today’s youth, none do so as thoroughly as To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee uses the innocence of Scout and Jem to teach readers to see the world through the eyes of a child and realize that discrimination is a learned trait, taught along with spelling and reading. Scout sees everyone basically the same. This is very apparent in Chapter 23 when Jem tries to explain social class to Scout and she responds saying, “Naw, Jem, I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks” (231). Scout believes that each person is born equal regardless of race or class. Her perspective and beliefs reflect her father’s tolerant disposition which he has successfully passed down to his daughter.
I believe the lessons of To Kill a Mockingbird are just as relevant today as they were in 1960 when the book was published, and for this reason, it is one of the most important books taught in high schools today.

‘You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.’

Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird is an undisputed classic that few will avoid having read in their lifetime, and those few are to be pitied. As I habe presentation of the novel coming up this weekend, a discussion group that I am lucky enough to be allowed to lead as part of the The Big Read here in Holland, Michigan, I felt it necessary to revisit this timeless classic (and I figured I’d review it to help collect my thoughts on the subject). The experience was like returning to a childhood home and finding it warm and welcoming and undisturbed from the passage of time, like walking the streets of my old neighborhood and hearing the calls of friends as they rode out with their bikes to greet me, of knowing the mailman by name and knowing where all the best places for hide-and-seek were, the best trees to climb, and feeling safe and secure in a place that is forever a part of yourself. Though some of the mechanics of the novel seemed less astonishing than my first visit more than a decade ago, the power and glory was still there, and I found a renewed love and respect for characters like Atticus, whom I’ve always kept close to heart when wrestling with my own position as a father. Harper Lee created a wonderful work that incorporated a wide range of potent themes, wrapping class systems, gender roles, Southern manners and taboos, and an important moral message of kindness, love and conviction all within a whimsical bildungsroman that no reader who has been graced by its pages will ever forget.

‘The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.’

In High School, Atticus was a favorite literary character and I wrote a big long essay for a class about Atticus as a pillar of morality, a man of honor, integrity, and most importantly, conviction. He is humble and honest, even admitting to his children that yes, indeed they are poor. In a novel about society, with its tumultuous mess of morals and class, Atticus is like an authorial deus ex machina, being Lee’s method of inserting moralizing and an example of what constitutes a ‘good man’ into the book through character and not authorial asides. I’ve always enjoyed Atticus and even named my second cat Catticus Finch. Atticus takes the unpopular position of defending a black man in a rape case when assigned to him despite the town nearly ostracizing him. Atticus does his duty, and does it well, as a man of conviction that believes in doing what is right and honorable regardless of the consequences, living up to his statement that ‘Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what’. In fact, Lee originally intended to name the novel Atticus before deciding it would stifle the broad perspective of Macomb by drawing too much attention to one character. Atticus remains steadfast throughout the novel, sure of himself and fully developed, whereas those around him undergo more a sense of change and development. This is a novel about personal growth and a broader understanding of those around you, and Atticus is the anchor to integrity and morality keeping his children centered in the violent storm of emotions and violence that befalls Macomb. This is all a bit overturned in the draft version that preceded writing Mockingbird which was later published as Go Set a Watchman and we see Atticus expressing some rather racist opinions on school integration and such, and the literary world has also had conversations on Atticus as a white savior character, so all that is worth keeping in mind as well.

‘When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness sake. But don't make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion faster than adults, and evasion simply muddles 'em.’

There is a childlike innocence spun through a novel of such weight and seriousness, executed brilliantly by Lee’s choice of Scout as the narrator. We are forever seeing a larger world through the eyes of a young girl still trying to find her place in it while making sense of all the hustle and bustle around her, and this creates an incredible ironic effect where there are large events going on that the reader understands but are delivered nearly through defamiliarization because the narrator cannot fully grasp them¹. The narration allows Lee to balance the coming-of-age hallmarks with the weightier themes, allowing the reader to maintain an innocence from the rape and racism while still able to make sense of the society functioning at large, and retreating from the darker themes into the fun of the children’s comings and goings. What is most impressive is how everything blends together, and the lessons learned in each aspect of their life are applied to all the other elements they come in contact with. The fates of Tom and Boo Radley are emotionally and morally linked in the readers mind, heart and soul.

All the standard bildungsroman motifs that make people love the genre are present in To Kill a Mockingbird, from schoolyard quarrels, to learning your place in society. We see Scout, Jem, and even Dill, gain a greater understanding of the world and their place in it, watch the children come to respect their father for more than just being a good father, see them make dares, terrorize the neighbors in good fun, and even stop a mob before it turns violent. With Scout, particularly, there is an element of gender identity at play that leads into a larger discussion about class and society. Children learn from those around them, and Scout spends much of the novel assessing those around her, perhaps subconsciously looking for a role model for herself. The ideas of what a good southern woman is and should be are imposed upon her throughout the town, such as Ms Dubose who criticizes her manner of dress, or Aunt Alexandra and her attempts to eradicate Scout’s tomboyish behavior, and she learns to dislike Miss Stephanie and her gossipy behavior. Miss Maudie, however, curbs gossip and insults, and puts on the face of a southern lady, but still gets down into the dirt in the garden and behaves in other, more boyish, ways that Scout identifies with. The gender identification becomes a cog in the gear of Southern tradition in manners and class. While the court case is unquestionably controversial due to the racial implications, it is also because it forces people to discuss rape and involves questioning the Word of a woman. It forces up a lot of taboo that the community is uncomfortable in being forced to deal with it, and many inevitably turn a squeamish blind eye when forced to confront the ugly truths at hand. Macomb is a society where everything and everyone has their place, a set identification, and they do not like it being disturbed. Most important to note is the correlation that the characters who are most inclined to uphold societal traditions through self-righteous brow-beatings often exhibit the most rampant racism throughout the novel.

‘Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except 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.’

There are many ‘mockingbird’ characters in this novel, such as Tom and Boo, but the real mockingbird is, to me at least, the innocence that is lost. The town is forced to see each other for who they really are, to question their beliefs, to grow up with all the racism and bigotry going on around them. Atticus teaches Scout that we cannot know someone until ‘you consider things from his point of view’, and through the novel we see many misjudgements of character based on misunderstanding or characters refusing to see beyond their closed opinions, or even something as simple as Scout and Jem believing the rumors of Boo Radley as a bloodthirsty maniac. ‘People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.’ This applies to many obdurate aspects of society, such as Miss Maudie stating ‘sometimes the Bible in hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of-oh, your father,’ emphasizing the ways that a closed mind is just as dangerous as a violent hand and that even religion can be misused. There is a message of love, of looking into the hearts of others and not just judging them, a message of compassion and open-mindedness working through To Kill a Mockingbird, and it is a message that we all must be reminded of from time to time.

There are a few issues that arose on a re-reading of the novel, having grown myself as a reader since I first encountered this lovely book. While the moral lessons are important and timeless, there is a sense of heavy-handedness to their delivery. Particularly at the end when Sheriff Tate points out the dangers of making a hero of Boo Radley.

n  taking the one man who’s done you and this town a great service an’ draggin’ him with his shy ways into the limelight—to me, that’s a sin. It’s a sin and I’m not about to have it on my head.n

This statement is quickly followed by Scout mentioning to Atticus that ‘Well, it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?’. It seems a bit unnecessary to reiterate the point, especially when Tate’s double use of sin was enough to draw a parallel to the message earlier in the novel that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird. This, I admit, is overly nitpicky but brings up a conversation about teaching this novel in schools. This book is, ideally, read at a time of the readers own coming-of-age and the connections they are sure to draw with the characters reinforce the love for the novel. It is also a time in life when you are just beginning to understand the greater worlds of literature, and overtly pointing out themes is more necessary for readers when they haven’t yet learned how to look for them properly. It is books such as this that teach us about books, and usher us into a world of reading between the lines that we hadn’t known was there before. Another quiet complaint I have with the novel that, despite the themes of racism, Calpurnia seems to be a bit of an Uncle Tom character. It is an imperfect novel that was progressive at its time but not so much in modern times, which is itself a great conversation that can be had inside the classroom and outside amongst readers.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel surely deserving of it’s classic status. Though it is not without its flaws, there is a timeless message of love that permeates through the novel. It is also of great importance as a book that young readers can use as a ladder towards higher literature than they had been previously exposed to. Lee has such a fluid prose that makes for excellent storytelling, especially through the coming-of-age narrative of Scout, and has a knack for creating exquisite characters that have left their immortal mark in the halls of Literature as well as the hearts of her readers.
4.5/5

‘...when they finally saw him, why he hadn’t done any of those things...Atticus, he was real nice.

Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.’

¹This style is reminiscent of William Faulkner, such as the court scene in Barn Burning from the detached perspective of a child. In fact, much of this novel feels indebted to Faulkner and the works of Southern Gothic authors before her, and the Tom incident and case feels familiar to those familiar with Faulkner’s Dry September or Intruder in the Dust. The way the most self-righteous and self-professed 'holy' also tend to be the basest of character morals is reminiscent of Flannery O'Connor as well. Lee’s story is fully her own, but it is always interesting to see the travels and growth of literary tradition.

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird one of the best-loved stories of all time, is a novel by Harper Lee published in 1960.

It was immediately successful, winning the Pulitzer Prize, and has become a classic of modern American literature.

The plot and characters are loosely based on Lee's observations of her family, her neighbors and an event that occurred near her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, in 1936, when she was 10 years old.

The story is told by the six-year-old Jean Louise Finch.

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و هشتم از ماه آوریل سال1994میلادی

عنوان: کشتن مرغ مینا؛ نویسنده: هارپر لی؛ مترجم: فخرالدین میررمضانی، تهران، توس، سال1370، در378ص؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، امیرکبیر، سال1390، در414ص؛ شابک9789640013816؛ چاپ دیگر: تهران، علمی فرهنگی، سال1393، در378ص؛ شابک978600121573؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده20م

مترجم دیگر: بابک تیموریان، تهران، ناس، سال1390، در504ص، شابک9789649917733؛

مترجم دیگر: روشنک ضرابی، تهران، انتشارات میلکان، سال1394، در360ص، شابک9786007845196؛

باور کردنی نیست، تا روز بیست و هشتم ماه دسامبر سال2015میلادی یا همان روز هشتم دیماه سال1395هجری خورشیدی، تنها در گودریدز بیش از سه میلیون کاربر همین کتاب را ستاره باران کرده اند؛ در تاریخ ششم ماه فوریه سال2020میلادی برابر با روز هفدهم ماه بهمن سال1398هجری خورشیدی این تعداد به4,184,604؛ مورد رسیده است؛ «مرغ مینا» پرنده‌ ای کوچک است، که توان تقلید صدا دارد، «مرغ مقلد» هم، صدای پرندگان دیگر را تقلید میکند؛

کتاب «کشتن مرغ مقلد»، نوشته ی بانوی روانشاد «هارپر لی»�� که با عنوان: «کشتن مرغ مینا» در «ایران» منتشر شده، نخستین بار در جهان در سال1960میلادی، به نشر سپرده شد، یکسال بعد، جایزه ی پولیتزر را برد؛ در سال1962میلادی نیز، «رابرت مولیگان»، فیلمی با اقتباس از متن همین کتاب ساختند، و در همان سال، ایشان هم توانستند، سه جایزه اسکار را، از آن خود کنند؛ فیلم جایزه ی بهترین بازیگر مرد را برای «گریگوری پک»، و جایزه های بهترین کارگردان هنری، و بهترین فیلمنامه ی اقتباس شده را، از آن خود کرد؛ بد نیست بیفزایم، خانم «هارپر لی»، تا یک دو سال مانده به پایان عمر پرفروغ خویش، تنها همین رمان را نوشته بودند، براساس واگویه ای از ایشان، بنوشته اند (در عصری که همه ی مردمان «لپ ‌تاپ»، «موبایل»، و «آی پاد» دارند، اما ذهنهاشان، همچون یک اتاق، خالیه؛ ترجیح میدهم، وقتم را با کتابهایم سپری کنم.) پایان نقل

ایشان در سال2007میلادی نیز، نشان آزادی را، از د��ت «رئیس جمهور آمریکا»، دریافت کردند؛

نقل از متن کتاب: (حواستون باشه کشتن مرغ مقلد گناهه؛ این را برای نخستین بار از «اتیکاس» شنیدم، که انجام کاری گناه داره، واسه همین هم به خانوم «مودی» گفتم؛ اون هم جواب داد پدرت درست گفته، مرغ مقلد، هیچکار نمیکنه، تنها برایمان میخونه، تا لذت ببریم؛ با تمام وجودش هم برامون میخونه؛ واسه همین هم کشتنش گناه داره) پایان نقل

هشدار: اگر کتاب را میخواهید بخوانید، از خوانش چکیده، پرهیز کنید

چکیده: «اسکات» و «جیم»، خواهر و برادر کوچکی هستند، که مادرشان سالها پیش از درب این سرای فانی بگذشته است، آن دو با پدرشان «اتیکاش»، در شهر کوچکی زندگی میکنند؛ پدر وکیل شهر هستند، و برای انسانیت، و باورهای مردمان احترام میگذارند؛ ایشان هماره کوشش میکند تا فرزندانش را انسان بار آورد؛ داستان از زبان کودک، و به زیبایی روایت میشود، قرار است یک سیاهپوست به نام: «تام»، به جرم تجاوز به دختری سفیدپوست، محاکمه شود، در حالیکه معلوم است، «تام» آن کار را نکرده است، و «آتیکوس» میخواهد، از ایشان دفاع کند، مردمان شهر، بر علیه «آتیکوس» هستند، و ایشان به عنوان یک پدر، میخواهند فرزندانش، در شرایط دشوار درست رفتار کنند؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 18/05/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 19/09/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.”

This is a novel that I have read countless times over the years and it never fails to connect with me on some level with every reading. That is no small feat for a book to accomplish. To speak to people the world over, for over 50 years, means that there is something universal in this text.
We are all the mockingbirds of the title, and anyone who has reached the age of majority knows the feelings that the loss of innocence, and the harsh light of reality can create in a person. Harper Lee wrote a novel that captured the essence of that most universal of experiences, and I for one am moved by it every time.
I won't rehash plot points, but I will give you some reasons why you should read, and then reread, this text.
The first reason is for the beautiful depiction of imaginative childhood. The narrator, her brother Jem, and their friend Dill embody most of the traits of childhood, and their creative games, and thought processes are a joy to behold. The voice of Scout (the narrator) is a pitch perfect recreation of childhood and childish impulses. Part I (chapters 1-11) of this book are possibly the best recreation of childhood that I have come across in literature.
Another reason is a pretty simple one actually. The character of Atticus Finch is one of the noblest literary creations ever written. I want to be like him, and there are not many characters in literature I can, or would, say that about. The fact that being like Atticus is possible makes him even more endearing to me. He is someone who is noble in every sense of the word, and serves as an inspiration for so many reasons. He is a good father, a decent and empathetic man, and a person who tries to see the good in almost anything. The fact that there are so few Atticus Finches in real life makes him seem all the more desirable to me. It is obvious as you read this text that Ms. Lee loves this character. Atticus’ emphatic desire to see all people as humans and worthy of respect (even when those people are undesirable) is a lesson for our (and all) time. It is a trait that many people preach, but few actually practice. Let someone vote for someone you do not like, or have a leader you can’t stand, and then watch the ugly flow forth. Atticus resists those impulses at every turn in this novel, and I am inspired by that.
There are numerous other reasons why this is a stellar work of genius, not least of which is the wonderful plotting of the novel, the excellent and fleshed out supporting characters (these people are real to me) and the message that Lee finds numerous ways to reiterate throughout the book.
When you get to the beautiful and brilliant chapter 9, the thematic heart of the novel begins to unfold. And every time I visit Maycomb County I find myself tearing up a little at such beautifully human moments. The text’s final chapter never fails to move me emotionally because it is so understated and powerful.
Ms. Lee has created a pastoral version of the Depression era south, and even though there is vicious bigotry and hatred depicted in the novel, Ms. Lee (through her characters) does not give up on them, or us. The world, and we, can be better. We just need to remind ourselves to walk in other people's shoes once in a while.

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.

I started rereading this book, which I haven’t read since high school, to get ready to read Go Set a Watchman. Then we all learned what a travesty the publication of that rejected first draft turned out to be. So I won’t be reading the faux sequel, but I did finish rereading this book.

To Kill a Mockingbird is regularly held up as THE greatest American novel, and in this instance popular opinion is probably correct. It is every bit as good as you remember, maybe better. Wonderfully paced, beautifully written, it’s still a remarkable book. As a father and lawyer, Atticus Finch remains as inspiring as ever. Scout is a great narrator of the story, and her lack of experience and cynicism enhances the experience. Well worth rereading, and if you somehow never read it, it’s a must read for any age.

„Да убиеш присмехулник“ е изключително силен и човешки роман! С голямо удоволствие си припомних тази очарователна история. В нея става дума за расизма и други сериозни проблеми на американското общество, обаче е съвсем разбираемо и увлекателно написана. Действието се развива в малко градче в Алабама през 30-те години на миналия век, като през погледа на малко момиче проследяваме трудния начин на живот и осъзнаваме жестокостта на предразсъдъците...





„Мисис Моди престана да се люлее и гласът й стана суров.
— Много си малка, за да го разбереш, но понякога библията в ръцете на един човек е по-страшна, отколкото бутилка уиски в ръцете на… баща ти например.
— Атикус никога не пие уиски! — възмутих се аз. — През целия си живот той не е сложил капка уиски в устата си… А, не, пил е! Каза ми, че веднъж пийнал и не го харесал.
Мисис Моди се разсмя.
— Не исках да кажа това. Мисълта ми беше, че ако Атикус Финч се напие, пак няма да бъде толкова лош, колкото другите хора в най-добрия им вид.“


„— Почти всички мислят, че те са прави, а ти не си…
— Те имат право да мислят така и тяхното мнение трябва да се уважава — каза Атикус, — но за да живея в мир с хората, трябва да живея в мир със себе си. Единственото нещо, което не се подчинява на мнозинството, е съвестта на човека.“


„Но в едно отношение всички хора в нашата страна са равни — една човешка институция прави бедния равен на Рокфелер, глупавия — равен на Айнщайн и неграмотния — равен на университетски ректор. Тази институция, господа, е съдът. Той може да бъде върховният съд на Съединените щати или най-скромният градски съд в страната, или този почтен съд, където вие сега заседавате. Нашите съдилища имат някои недостатъци, но съдилищата са великите уравнители в тази страна и в нашите съдилища всички хора са равни.
Аз не съм идеалист, но вярвам твърдо в съвършенството на нашите съдилища и в института на съдебните заседатели — това за мен не е идеал, а съществуваща реалност. Господа, като цяло съдът не е по-добър от всеки от нас, които заседават тук. Даден съд е толкова разумен, колкото са разумни неговите съдебни заседатели, а съдебните заседатели са толкова разумни като цяло, колкото е всеки от вас поотделно.“

To know this book is to love it. There are many reasons why Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most beloved novels ever written. In setting forth the story of what happens when a lawyer in early-20th-century Alabama defends an African American man who has been unjustly accused of a horrible crime, Harper Lee writes with a grace and musicality characteristic of Southern literature. She delineates the Alabama society of an earlier time with an unerring eye and ear for detail. She tells a great and moving story of moral courage under the most difficult circumstances imaginable. And she composes a heartfelt paean for a beloved father.

When To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960, it was not such an easy thing for a white Southern author to write an openly and unapologetically anti-racist novel. In Lee’s home state of Alabama alone, Rosa Parks’s courageous act of civil disobedience, and the Montgomery bus boycott led by Martin Luther King Jr., were just a couple of years in the past; and still in Alabama’s near future were the jailing of Dr. King in Birmingham, the violence at Selma, and George Wallace’s “stand in the schoolhouse door” at Tuscaloosa to try to keep the University of Alabama segregated. It is against that backdrop of social tension that a young Alabama woman crafted her novel – one that won the Pulitzer Prize and became an instant classic.

The graceful, understated style of the novel no doubt contributed to its success. As the novel’s narrator, a grown woman named Jean Louise Finch, looks back to her childhood as the tomboyish “Scout” in her hometown of Maycomb, she recalls her beloved family – her widowed father Atticus Finch, a highly regarded lawyer, and her older brother Jem – and the language in which she offers those recollections at once makes the reader want to travel along.

Part of the beauty of To Kill a Mockingbird, even before the novel gets to its main business of chronicling the trial of Tom Robinson, is getting a sense of how family life might proceed in a small Southern town back in the 1930’s. For instance, Scout, Jem, and their friend Dill who visits them every summer have an ongoing fascination with the nearby Radley family, whose son Boo, a young man with an unspecified disability, has become a subject of interest for the children. There are all sorts of troubling, vaguely Gothic stories about Boo’s alleged behavior, and the children tend to linger about the Radley house, hoping for a glimpse of the mysterious Boo.

The children’s unauthorized visits to the Radley house eventually cause Atticus to intervene. Atticus, using courtroom tactics that will be important later in the novel, and keeping his mouth “suspiciously firm, as if he were trying to hold it in line”, gets Jem to admit that the three children were “putting [Boo Radley’s] life’s history on display for the edification of the neighborhood” (p. 50). Shortly afterwards, Jem “realized that he had been done in by the oldest lawyer’s trick on record. He waited a respectful distance from the front steps, watched Atticus leave the house and walk toward town. When Atticus was out of earshot Jem yelled after him: ‘I thought I wanted to be a lawyer but I ain’t so sure now!” (p. 50)

Many people first experience To Kill a Mockingbird through Alan J. Pakula’s brilliant 1962 film adaptation, with Gregory Peck’s Oscar-winning performance as Atticus Finch. It is a great film; and if you love it, as I do, I hope that you will return to it, and will continue to draw enjoyment from it. At the same time, I hope you will turn to the novel, as Lee has time in the novel to go into greater depth regarding the characters and themes that she wants to explore.

One of my favorite passages in the novel, for example, deals with Mrs. Dubose, a cantankerous old woman of the town whose continuing dedication to the prejudices of the Old South is symbolized by the Confederate Army pistol that she keeps under her shawls. In Chapter 11, Mrs. Dubose harshly criticizes Atticus for deciding to defend Tom Robinson, and Jem retaliates by tearing up Mrs. Dubose’s prize camellias. Jem’s punishment, his “sentence,” is to go and read to Mrs. Dubose, every day but Sundays, for a month.

In the context of Jem’s “sentence,” Atticus shares some of his ideas, in a way that will remind many of us of when our fathers told us something that expanded our ethical awareness. Atticus explains to Scout that he is defending Tom Robinson, despite the strong disapproval of most whites in his community, because “before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience” (p. 99). He dismisses Mrs. Dubose’s race-based insults by saying that “it’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn’t hurt you” (p. 102).

And when Mrs. Dubose has died, and new information has been revealed regarding her final illness, Atticus tells Jem that “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what” (p. 105). Those themes will be of major significance throughout To Kill a Mockingbird.

Indeed, as Atticus takes up the defense of Tom Robinson, an African-American man who has been falsely accused of rape by the daughter of a white farmer, we see a practical application of the ideas Atticus has expressed regarding the importance of doing the right thing, even if one knows that one cannot prevail. This element of To Kill a Mockingbird comes forth just before the beginning of the trial, when Scout hears a group of Maycomb whites speaking disparagingly of her father’s work as defense attorney for Tom Robinson. One man points out that Atticus was court-appointed as Tom Robinson’s defense attorney, and another replies, “Yeah, but Atticus aims to defend him. That’s what I don’t like about it.” The grown-up Scout as narrator recalls her childhood confusion at hearing these words:

This was news, news that put a different light on things: Atticus had to, whether he wanted to or not. I thought it odd that he hadn’t said anything to us about it – we could have used it many times in defending him and ourselves. He had to, that’s why he was doing it, equaled fewer fights and less fussing. But did that explain the town’s attitude? The court appointed Atticus to defend him. Atticus aimed to defend him. That’s what they didn’t like about it. It was confusing. (p. 151)

Once the trial has commenced, Atticus swiftly exposes the inconsistencies and lies in the testimony of Tom Robinson’s accuser, Mayella Ewell, and her father, Bob (“Robert E. Lee”) Ewell – ruining, in the process, whatever shreds of credibility these two people from an impoverished farm family may ever have had in Maycomb County. But the jury renders an unjust verdict nonetheless; and when Jem wants to know why, Atticus offers the following:

“So far, nothing in your life has interfered with your reasoning process. Those are twelve reasonable men in everyday life, Tom’s jury, but you saw something come between them and reason….There’s something in our world that makes men lose their heads – they couldn’t be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins….The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box.” (pp. 201-02)

But there is still a good deal of unfinished business left in To Kill a Mockingbird. Bob Ewell – exposed as an abusive liar, his credibility in his community thoroughly and permanently ruined in that courtroom – wants revenge against Atticus, and plans to seek that revenge by moving against Scout and Jem. The dramatic resolution of those plot events causes Scout to reflect, after a last-minute rescue by an unexpected benefactor, that “Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them” (pp. 253-54).

To Kill a Mockingbird is so complete in terms of plot, characterization, setting, point of view, and theme that a single question often comes up: Why was this novel the only one? Harper Lee was 34 years old when To Kill a Mockingbird was published, and she lived another 55 years after that – and no other novel of hers appeared until Go Set a Watchman, an early draft of Mockingbird, was published in 2015, when Lee was 89 and in failing health. Why did the writer who once said that she wanted to be “the Jane Austen of South Alabama” not continue with her literary career?

Here is my theory. Go Set a Watchman sets forth a significantly less favorable picture of Atticus Finch. The character of Atticus in turn is clearly drawn from Lee’s beloved father Amasa C. Lee – who, like the novel’s Atticus, mounted an unsuccessful legal defense in a racially charged case in 1930’s Alabama. In the process of revising Go Set a Watchman into To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee found a way to recast the fictionalized portrait of her father in a more favorable light; but perhaps she found that there would be no way to move forward with her novelistic career without drawing realistic and damning portraits of real-life people who would read her work and resent the way they had been portrayed.

Thomas Wolfe, another great Southern writer of the 20th century, faced the same kind of resentment, and accepted that the way he had depicted fellow Asheville residents in novels like Look Homeward, Angel (1929) meant that he could not go home again to Western North Carolina. Perhaps Harper Lee decided that she could not, fictively speaking, go to the places where she would have to go if she were to write more novels.

Yet criticizing the author of a great novel because she “only” wrote one great novel seems ungracious in the extreme. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee set forth an unforgettably vivid portrait of American life in a small Southern town in the 1930’s. She created in Atticus Finch a singular example of a character of individual courage and conscience – a man who fights an unwinnable battle against a society’s corruption, simply because it is the right and human thing to do. This book is also a moving, lyrical love song for a beloved father – one that will cause many of us to recall with gratitude the strength, courage, and compassion of our own fathers. Harper Lee’s Mockingbird lives on, and no one can ever kill it.

While the plot was very gripping and well-written, the book didn't actually instruct me on how to kill a mockingbird. I bought this book intending to do away with this obnoxious bird that's always sitting in my backyard and making distracting noises. I had hoped this book would shed some light on how to humanely dispose of the bird, but unfortunately it was this story about a lawyer and a falsely-accused criminal. As I said, the plot is great but nowhere in the book does it say exactly how to kill a mockingbird.

I first read this book my freshman year of high school, at the age of 14 or 15. And now, here I am, at 22 and graduating from college reading it for the second time. It's incredible how much difference those 8 years of school have on one's perspective. Though I remembered a lot of the plot from this book, as it's quite memorable and I have seen the film a time or two, there were also a lot of elements, especially characterization, that I see in a totally different light.

To me, upon a second reading, this book is really about Jem. The book starts and ends talking about Jem. He undergoes so much change in this story, and while Scout is a great narrator and Atticus is an amazing father figure, Jem is the one that seems to be at the center of what Lee is getting at in this novel. Jem, to me, is the greatest character of them all.

On the other hand, Atticus Finch has always been a character that I've idealized and even slightly idolized. I remember him being so full of wisdom and such an amazing father, which he is. But upon re-reading this book, I have come to realize Atticus is very one-note. Yes, he is absolutely brilliant and kind, and if we had more people like him in the world it would be a better place. But in terms of a character, he is quite flat. I don't mean that negatively, but only to point out that his main function in the novel, for me, is to be a paragon of a wise person. He opposes racism tactfully and spiritedly. And he stands up for his beliefs. But other than that, his role as a character seems more as a function to serve Jem and Scout's growth as humans. It doesn't mean I love him any less; I just found it interesting to note how I see him differently now than I did when I was younger.

I also forgot how few pages the whole trial takes up of the book. For obvious reason, that is always what I think of when I hear To Kill a Mockingbird. But in reality, it's only maybe 10% of the story. So much of TKAM is about Scout and Jem's antics and life in Maycomb. I loved revisiting their lives and the lives of all their neighbors.

I can't give this less than 5 stars because of how amazing it is in so many ways: characters, writing, storyline, and themes. It's an important American story, and I am extremely curious to see how the sequel coming out this summer deals with the characters!

Well, how many are the readers who just felt like abandoning the ship as soon as it started sailing? I tried reading it so many times but could not move ahead on many occasions but I had to read it - why? A classic; an award-winner; a legend; a record breaker; this, that, then, now, when, what...

Well, not everything deemed as a classic will fit your idea of a classic. John Donne was ignored for centuries; there are also pieces of literature hyped beyond imagination! A classic paradox!

Honestly, to me, the novel as well as the movie, both were extremely boring. If you like reading things that move actually, think of getting a different title.

So far, I have found that this book is complete drivel. I don't understand the mass appeal to this novel, nor do I understand how it managed to go down in history as an amazing piece of America literature. This book has no plot, no point, and no real characters.

The characters in this book are one dimensional and painfully drab. They all seem to have the same personality with a few minor differences, and all that does is create boring dialogue and an uninteresting point of view. Harper Lee may be talented with using advanced vocabulary, but that does not make her a good writer.

There is no conflict in this book. There's no personality. There's nothing interesting that compels me to read more.

I'm fairly far into the book, and yet I still have no idea what it is about. If I could rate this book no stars, I would do so. This book is a necessary read for my honors English class, but if I could get away with not reading it I would do it without a bit of hesitation.

As soon as I am done with this sorry excuse for a book, I am either going to tend to my fireplace using the pages as kindling or stash this book in the far corners of my basement where it will live out the rest of its days in darkness. I am not afraid to say with all honesty that this is possibly one of the most terrible wastes of paper I have ever laid eyes on.