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To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by the American author Harper Lee. It was published in 1960 and was 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, winning the famed Pulitzer Prize. 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 ten.
Despite dealing with some serious issues, the novel is renowned for its warmth and humor. Atticus Finch, the narrator's father, has served as a moral hero for many readers and as a model of integrity for lawyers. The historian Joseph Crespino explains, "In the twentieth century, To Kill a Mockingbird is probably the most widely read book dealing with race in America, and its main character, Atticus Finch, the most enduring fictional image of racial heroism."
As a Southern Gothic novel and Bildungsroman, the primary themes of To Kill a Mockingbird involve racial injustice and the destruction of innocence. Scholars have noted that Lee also addresses issues of class, courage, compassion, and gender roles in the Deep South. The book is widely taught in schools in the United States with lessons that emphasize tolerance and decry prejudice.
Despite (or mostly because of) its themes, To Kill a Mockingbird has been subject to campaigns for removal from public classrooms, often challenged for its use of racial epithets. In 2006, British librarians ranked the book ahead of the Bible as one "every adult should read before they die".
Characters[]
- Scout Finch
- Jeremy "Jem" Atticus Finch
- Atticus Finch
- Boo Radley
- Calpurnia
- Charles Baker "Dill" Harris
- Walter Cunningham
- Miss Caroline Fisher - Scout's first teacher
- Little Chuck Little
- Burris Ewell
rest to be added
Publisher's Summary[]
Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South - and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred.
One of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the US.
A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father - a crusading local lawyer - risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.
Plot[]
Part One[]
Chapter 1[]
One day, as they are playing in the yard, Scout and Jem Finch (kids of local lawyer Atticus Finch) meet a young boy named Dill Harris from Mississippi. The two bond over acting out stories. After several months, the three kids become bored with this and Dill dares the Finch siblings to knock on the door of the Radleys (a house that the people of Maycomb avoid with all their heart). Jem Finch stalls and Dill changes the dare from knocking on the door to touching the house. After touching the house, Jem flees in terror.
Chapter 2[]
On Scout's first day of school (a week after Dill returns to Mississippi), her teacher Caroline Fisher scolds her for knowing how to read "early". After she tries to explain why a poor student can't pay her back, the teacher grows irritated and whacks her over the hand with a ruler.
Chapter 3[]
In the schoolyard, Scout tries to bully the student (Walter Cunningham) who she views as having made her look bad. She is stopped by Jem, who invites Walter to dinner. At dinner, Walter drowns his food with syrup - perturbing Scout. After she voices this, she is scolded by the Finch's maid Calpurnia.
The next day, Scout's teacher is frightened after she sees a "cootie" crawling in a student's hair. Another student, Little Chuck Little comforts Miss Fisher but after she tries to get the student (a member of the extremely rough and animalistic Ewell clan) to bathe before he comes to school the next day, the boy yells at Mrs. Cunningham. That night, Scout's father talks to her about the nature of the Ewells and about her fears about school.
Chapter 4[]
to be added
Worldbuilding[]
- The Finch family are descendants of a slaveowner and Methodist named Simon Finch who established an estate near Maycomb near Finch's Landing. Most of the Finches have lived on the estate, and Atticus was one of the first to leave Finch's Landing.
rest to be added
Full Summary[]
Scout Finch lives with her brother, Jem, and their widowed father, Atticus, in the sleepy Alabama town of Maycomb. Maycomb is suffering through the Great Depression, but Atticus is a prominent lawyer and the Finch family is reasonably well off in comparison to the rest of society. One summer, Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill, who has come to live in their neighborhood for the summer, and the trio acts out stories together. Eventually, Dill becomes fascinated with the spooky house on their street called the Radley Place. The house is owned by Mr. Nathan Radley, whose brother, Arthur (nicknamed Boo), has lived there for years without venturing outside.
Scout goes to school for the first time that fall and detests it. She and Jem find gifts apparently left for them in a knothole of a tree on the Radley property. Dill returns the following summer, and he, Scout, and Jem begin to act out the story of Boo Radley. Atticus puts a stop to their antics, urging the children to try to see life from another person’s perspective before making judgments. But, on Dill’s last night in Maycomb for the summer, the three sneak onto the Radley property, where Nathan Radley shoots at them. Jem loses his pants in the ensuing escape. When he returns for them, he finds them mended and hung over the fence.
The next winter, Jem and Scout find more presents in the tree, presumably left by the mysterious Boo. Nathan Radley eventually plugs the knothole with cement. Shortly thereafter, a fire breaks out in another neighbor’s house, and during the fire someone slips a blanket on Scout’s shoulders as she watches the blaze. Convinced that Boo did it, Jem tells Atticus about the mended pants and the presents.
To the consternation of Maycomb’s racist white community, Atticus agrees to defend a Black man named Tom Robinson, who has been accused of raping a white woman. Because of Atticus’s decision, Jem and Scout are subjected to abuse from other children, even when they celebrate Christmas at the family compound on Finch’s Landing. Calpurnia, the Finches’ Black cook, takes them to the local Black church, where the warm and close-knit community largely embraces the children.
Atticus’s sister, Alexandra, comes to live with the Finches the next summer. Dill, who is supposed to live with his “new father” in another town, runs away and comes to Maycomb. Tom Robinson’s trial begins, and when the accused man is placed in the local jail, a mob gathers to lynch him. Atticus faces the mob down the night before the trial. Jem and Scout, who have sneaked out of the house, soon join him. Scout recognizes one of the men, and her polite questioning about his son shames him into dispersing the mob.
At the trial itself, the children sit in the “colored balcony” with the town’s Black citizens. Atticus provides clear evidence that the accusers, Mayella Ewell and her father, Bob, are lying: in fact, Mayella propositioned Tom Robinson, was caught by her father, and then accused Tom of rape to cover her shame and guilt. Atticus provides impressive evidence that the marks on Mayella’s face are from wounds that her father inflicted; upon discovering her with Tom, he called her a whore and beat her. Yet, despite the significant evidence pointing to Tom’s innocence, the all-white jury convicts him. The innocent Tom later tries to escape from prison and is shot to death. In the aftermath of the trial, Jem’s faith in justice is badly shaken, and he lapses into despondency and doubt.
Despite the verdict, Bob Ewell feels that Atticus and the judge have made a fool out of him, and he vows revenge. He menaces Tom Robinson’s widow, tries to break into the judge’s house, and finally attacks Jem and Scout as they walk home from a Halloween party. Boo Radley intervenes, however, saving the children and stabbing Ewell fatally during the struggle. Boo carries the wounded Jem back to Atticus’s house, where the sheriff, in order to protect Boo, insists that Ewell tripped over a tree root and fell on his own knife. After sitting with Scout for a while, Boo disappears once more into the Radley house.
Later, Scout feels as though she can finally imagine what life is like for Boo. He has become a human being to her at last. With this realization, Scout embraces her father’s advice to practice sympathy and understanding and demonstrates that her experiences with hatred and prejudice will not sully her faith in human goodness.
See Also[]
| Title | Author | Release date | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Time to Kill | John Grisham | 1989 | A novel with similar themes |
| The Heart is a Lonely Hunter | Carson McCullers | 1940 | Another major Southern gothic novel |
| The Neon Bible | John Kennedy Toole | 1989 | A Southern novel with similar themes of its narrator discovering racism |
| Cat on a Hot Tin Roof | Tennessee Williams | 1955 | A Southern gothic play |
| In Cold Blood | Truman Capote | 1966 | A nonfiction book by one of Lee's contemporaries with similar themes |
| The Sound and the Fury | William Faulkner | 1929 | Another major Southern gothic novel |
| Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | Mark Twain | 1884 | Another major Southern novel |
| Invisible Man | Ralph Ellison | 1952 | Another novel that examines African-American culture released around the same time |
| A Confederacy of Dunces | John Kennedy Toole | 1980 | Another major Southern novel |