To kill a mockingbird
The book was an instant classic when Lee published it at age 34. But for more
than 50 years, Lee, now 88, never published again despite pleas from readers and the
literary establishment. Her reclusive life made it difficult for people to write about her,
and it was only in 2006 that Charles J. Shields published his biography, Mockingbird: A
Portrait Of Harper Lee. Writer Marja Mills followed last year with The Mockingbird Next
Door, a memoir about her friendship with Lee and her sister Alice, who died last year.
Another reason to kill a mockingbird is a good book. The plot of the book is fun,
appealing yet profound and thought-provoking. The book made me laugh on several
occasions, reminisce about my own childhood on the other and made my heart cringe
or come close to tears at others. The joy of reading this book lies in the fact how the
parent in Atticus Finch gently rounds off every event with his wise words or moves. Set
in a society that lived almost eighty years ago, the beliefs and principles followed by the
Finch family are fresh, liberated and open-minded, relevant even in current times.
The book has three child characters ranging in ages between 8 years to 12
years. The book is an innocent, sensitive portrayal of their growing up, the emotional,
physical and psychological changes they undergo as adolescence steps in, captured in
a natural, closer-to-life fashion. The joys, playfulness, pranks, curiosity and ironies of
childhood generously season the entire length of the book. Loss of Innocence The
characters in To Kill A Mockingbird and the people in our society don’t understand our
world until they’ve experienced a loss of innocence. Growing up is a hard part of life.
When people are younger, they’re naive and not aware of anything outside their home.
When experiencing loss of innocence, people are more aware of right and wrong.
People are beginning the rules and concepts of life. Experiencing a life lesson can lead
to a loss of innocence. People are finally understanding.
The plot deals with the incident of rape of a white woman by a dark man. But the
sensitivity with which the trial is narrated and also the open-mindedness with which the
events are discussed by Atticus with his children from time to time is comforting, stirring
and commendable in one go. A theme of morals is highlighted throughout the novel
pertaining particularly to religion and the perception of sin.
For reasons that should be obvious , I’ve always had a connection to this book. It
is an American literary classic for good reason. It is both a historical portrait of the
American South and a compelling tale of fear, hatred, and injustice that is by no means
applicable only to its country of origin. At its core, it is an examination of Humanity. I
firmly believe that everyone should give it a good read. But everyone knows that it's
about racism. If you only know one thing about it, you know that. I would like to point out
a couple of less discussed aspects. I am assuming that the reader has already read the
book, seen the film, or is at least familiar with the plot. If you're not, this won't make a
ton of sense.
One of my favorite parts is in Chapter 15. After Sheriff Tate warns Atticus that
Tom Robinson is being moved to the County Jail and that a lynch mob should be
expected, Atticus goes to guard the jailhouse door himself. Jem, Scout, and Dill sneak
out after him. They witness four dusty cars pull up and see a group of men get out and
order Atticus to move and let them go inside. It is at this moment that Scout decides to
surprise her father by coming out and making her presence known. She recognizes one
of the men in the lynch mob as the father of her classmate, Walter Cunningham.
This gets to the heart of many of the problems that arise from the anonymity that
the Internet provides us today. It shows the reason why I think Quora’s Real Name
Policy is important. People have a much harder time being evil when they know that
their name and reputation in the greater community is at stake. Oscar Wilde said “give a
man a mask and he will show you his true face”, but I think that is a bit of an idealistic
way of thinking today. I have witnessed first hand that giving a person a mask can
sometimes encourage them to experiment with kinds of evil that they never would have
touched otherwise. Maybe Wilde was right and the true faces of humanity are just far
more hideous than we like to imagine, but I am personally hesitant to lose my faith in
the species. Everyone should read that book. It is amazing. I’ll do my best to accurately
summarize the case here. All of the following information is factual. Walter McMillian
was a black man who made a good living in the pulpwood industry, enough to make him
one of the more financially independent residents of the very poor Monroe County. In
the 1980s, he had an affair with a married white woman named Karen Kelly. When her
husband found out that she had been unfaithful-and with a black man no less-he
publicly divorced and disgraced her. She eventually turned to drugs and crime. It was at
this point in her life that she met Ralph Myers, a habitual criminal and fellow social
outcast whose face had been severely burned in a childhood fire and left him scarred,
ugly, and deeply pyrophobic. But that's just the background. The case in question
focused on the murder of Ronda Morrison on November 1, 1986.