The Alabama Shakespeare Festival
2013 Study Materials and Activities for
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
dramatized by Christopher Sergel
Director
Diana Van Fossen
Contact ASF at: www.asf.net
1.800.841-4273
Set Design
Peter Hicks
Costume Design
Pamela Scofield
Lighting Design
Phil Monat
Study materials written by
Susan Willis, ASF Dramaturg
swillis@asf.net
ASF 2013/ 1
To Kill a
Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
dramatized by
Christopher Sergel
Characters
Atticus Finch, a lawyer
Jeremy (Jem) Finch, his 12year-old son
"Scout" (Jean Louise) Finch,
his daughter, 8 years old
Dill (Charles Baker) Harris, a
child, visiting relatives next
door
Calpurnia, the Finches' cook
and housekeeper
Maudie Atkinson, a neighbor
and a narrative voice
Stephanie Crawford, the
neighborhood gossip
Mrs. Dubose, the neighborhood
crank
Nathan Radley, a neighbor
Arthur ("Boo") Radley, his
reclusive brother
Heck Tate, the local sheriff
Judge Taylor
Bob Ewell, a shiftless local
Mayella Ewell, his daughter
Walter Cunningham, a farmer
Rev. Sykes, Calpurnia's pastor
Mr. Gilmer, a public prosecutor
Tom Robinson, the accused
Other farmers and townspeople
A Southern Classic on the Stage
Harper Lee's 1960 novel To Kill a
Mockingbird gives us a brilliant re-creation of
a 1930s' Southern childhood and a stark look
at race and class in America. The combination
of these narrative forces is a great part of the
novel's power. By weaving the background of
her own life in Monroeville, Alabama into the
fictional world of Maycomb, Lee adds to the
poignancy and accuracy of her tale. The society
is as clear, as stratified, as real as can be, the
haves divided from the have nots, the blacks
from the whites, all the while dependent on each
other and living in a single town during a time
of national economic depression.
One decent man, a widower, a principled
lawyer, raises his two children with the help
of his Negro cook. This man, Atticus Finch,
shapes his children's views of their neighbors
and challenges his town's views of theirs. Most
authors' first novels quietly disappear; this
first novel by Harper Lee sold more than two
million copies in its first year, and 53 years later
continues to sell over a million copies annually
worldwide. In dozens of translations, Scout,
Atticus, and Boo Radley have come to life on the
page, the novel's issues have proved universal,
and along with the film they have inspired
countless readers to think about their world—and
in some cases to become lawyers.
Adapting this novel to film or stage means
making choices among the rich details of Lee's
web of narrative and scene. The live enactment
gives the power of being in the moment with the
action and serves this much-loved story well.
About Language in To Kill a Mockingbird
The play is set in 1935 rural Alabama and
accurately depicts the speech and views of a
small town during the Great Depression. In a play
that treats racial prejudice among other subjects,
the use of the word "nigger" occurs at times as
it did historically. In the script, it is no sooner
used than its use is addressed and forbidden
by Atticus Finch, though his admonition to his
children does not stop others from using it.
About the Study Materials
These study materials assume a familiarity
with the novel, since many students read it in
school. Should you not be teaching the novel
to students you bring to see the play at ASF, we
list a number of internet sources and teacher
guides for plot summaries that make discussion
of the adaptation process possible, perhaps
more effectively after seeing the play. There are
also discussion points and activities, historical
context, biography, and analysis.
Setting: Maycomb, Alabama
Time: the summer of 1935
Nelle Harper Lee in the court room of Monroeville's old courthouse
ASF 2013/ 2
To Kill a
Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
dramatized by
Christopher Sergel
Harper Lee in 1964
Harper Lee recently
In a survey of titles frequently
assigned in U.S. high schools,
Harper Lee's novel ranked in
the top five, along with works
by William Shakespeare, Mark
Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and
F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Harper Lee: An Alabama Treasure
It is not accidental that writing about author
Harper Lee feels like describing Scout. Lee
imaginatively accessed her own life in writing her
novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, and also used the
familiar setting of her hometown, Monroeville,
Alabama, and the youth of her long-time friend
Truman Capote, the original of Dill. As a child,
Capote often visited his relatives who lived
next door to the Lees in Monroeville. As so
many Southern authors have, Lee took what
was engrained, then crafted it into compelling
fiction.
At home in Monroeville where she was born
April 28, 1926, the author we know as Harper Lee
goes by "Nelle," her first name. Sure that anyone
who read her book would mispronounce her
monosyllabic first name as "Nellie," however, she
used "Harper" for the novel. Her father, Amasa
Coleman Lee, was a prominent Monroeville
lawyer and newspaper owner who also served
for a time in the Alabama legislature.
Harper Lee's collegiate studies began
at Huntingdon College in Montgomery and
continued at the University of Alabama, where
she nearly completed a law degree (her older
sister Alice did become a lawyer and joined her
father's practice). Instead of the law, however,
Lee left the university to pursue her writing
in New York City, where she worked as an
airline reservations clerk by day while writing
at night.
Writing the Novel
At Christmas, 1956, some New York friends,
the Broadway composer and lyricist Michael
Martin Brown and his wife Joy, encouraged Lee
with the gift of a year's income so she could
write full-time. She showed five of her short
stories to a literary agent, who advised her to
write a novel. Months of drafting and revising
produced the manuscript she sent to Lippincott
in 1957. The publisher thought it still seemed
more like a series of short stories and asked for
revision,and by working with an editor for two
years, Lee turned the manuscript, then called
Atticus, into To Kill a Mockingbird, which was
finally published in July, 1960 and spent almost
two years on the best-seller list.
The novel gained Lee instant fame, a Pulitzer
Prize, and the chance to see her work filmed
in 1962 with a screenplay by Horton Foote and
with Gregory Peck memorably playing Atticus
Finch, both men winning Academy Awards for
their work. As the recent film Capote portrays,
Harper Lee's friendship with Truman Capote
continued their entire lives, and she helped
him research his famous book In Cold Blood in
Kansas. Her easy openness and charm eased
the locals, enabling better interviews, and her
astute observations captured detail.
"Writing is the hardest thing in the
world," Lee says, "…but writing is the only
thing that has made me completely happy."
Many people find this statement tormenting
since Lee, to date, has published only one
novel, though there has always been talk of at
least one other unpublished work. In 1963 she
told the Alabama Journal she was at work on
her second book, purportedly about a murder in
Alexander City. For years she divided her time
between New York City and Monroeville, making
only selected public appearances.
The Monroeville she made famous, the
"Maycomb" of 1935, is long gone, now a matter
of aging memories and old photo albums. The
Lees' family home on South Alabama Street was
demolished to make way for Mel's Dairy Dream.
Nor is the home next door where Truman Capote
spent his summers still standing—only part of
the front stone wall remains. And down the street
a gas station has taken the place of the family
home at the turn in the road where a reclusive
son lived. But the old county courthouse is still
there, through it, too, almost disappeared in the
1970s. It is now a museum where every spring
the community performs its own production of
To Kill a Mockingbird with an all-white, all-male
jury selected from the audience that must play
its role and vote "guilty." The difficulty they face
is a testimony to the changes the novel fosters
and foretells.
ASF 2013/ 3
To Kill a
Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
dramatized by
Christopher Sergel
Truman Persons (Capote)—the
original of Dill—as a child
in Monroeville
Read Truman Capote's most
famous story of childhood,
"A Christmas Memory," ,
available online at:
http://www.sailthouforth.com/
2009/12/christmas-memory.
html
Harper Lee and Truman Capote as Children
Both Harper Lee and Truman Capote,
childhood neighbors and friends, famously
turned their childhoods into fiction. She
imaginatively altered her own and her family's
experience, but Capote's youth Lee seems to
have portrayed straightforwardly.
Capote often said "I had a very difficult
childhood" or "I had the most insecure childhood
I know of," and he may have been right. His
mother sometimes locked Truman the toddler
in the hotel closet so she could go out at night
or left him in Monroeville with relatives.
I stood in the road, watching her drive
away in a black Buick, which got smaller
and smaller and smaller. Imagine a dog,
watching and waiting and hoping to be taken
away. That is the picture of me then.
Elderly cousins raised Truman in Monroeville,
one of whom was a loving, fanciful playmate for
the child The boy "was small for his age, to begin
with," reports biographer Gerald Clarke, "and
he did not enjoy fighting and rolling in the dirt,
as most boys around there did."
Friendship
Yet like Scout, Truman benefitted from
Nelle's father, Mr. Lee, whose character strongly
influenced the nature of Atticus Finch. Truman
had a distinctive temperament; he loved to
read—having learned by "helping" Mr. Lee next
door work crossword puzzles and by reading
funny pages with his elderly cousin Sook—and
from the age of five he loved to write. Mr. Lee gave
Truman a pocket dictionary which he carried
with him everywhere, along with his notebook
and pencil. His vivid imagination made him an
exciting playmate.
The street Nelle Harper Lee grew up on; her house was near the car.
In that use of imagination, Capote and Lee
were a good match. As Lee observed about
her own childhood, "We didn't have much
money. Nobody had any money. We didn't
have toys, nothing was done for us, so the
result was that we lived in our imagination
most of the time."
In the Capote biography, Clarke also asserts
a psychological link between the two children:
The bond that united them was
stronger than friendship—it was a common
anguish.… they both were shattered by
loneliness. Neither had many other real
friends. Nelle was too rough for most other
girls, and Truman was too soft for most
other boys.
While Lee wove her fiction around her own
experience growing up in Monroeville, her novel
is fiction, and the point Clarke makes is a good
example of that fictionalization. Unlike Scout,
Nelle Harper Lee lived in a largely female family;
her mother was alive, not dead, although she
suffered from what the family called a "nervous
disorder" and was increasingly housebound (she
does have an influence on the novel, however;
her maiden name was Finch). Nelle Lee also had
two older sisters, Alice 15 years her senior and
Louise 10 years older, while her brother Edwin
was six years older than Nelle.
Feeding the Imagination
As a child, Lee often played with Capote and
his older cousin Jennings Faulk Carter. Carter
recalls one of many events that partly wove itself
into Lee's novel. At Truman's going away party
before he moved to New York City to rejoin his
remarried mother, local Klan members planned
a march after hearing the rumor that Negroes
were going to be at his disguise party.
Instead of their supposed targets, they
cornered a neighbor disguised so well as a
robot in silver-painted boxes that he could not
move his arms or remove his headpiece to
identify himself. Mr. Lee confronted the Klan
in the street and freed Sonny Boulware (who
shared some personal traits with the fictional
Arthur Radley). And there was also a school
pageant, but one of Nelle's friends played the
ham. Such remembered incidents eventually
fermented and morphed into some climactic
moments of To Kill a Mockingbird—Atticus's
confrontation with the mob at the jail and later
Scout's inability to extricate herself from her
costume while being attacked.
ASF 2013/ 4
To Kill a
Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
dramatized by
Christopher Sergel
Walker Evans, Alabama, 1935.
Popular Culture in the Great
Depression
• defining song of the Depression—
"Brother, Can You Spare a
Dime?"
• radio was the most popular form
of entertainment. Music, variety,
and comedy shows prevailed,
while dramas emphasized the
pursuit of justice with figures
such as Dick Tracy, the Lone
Ranger, Perry Mason, The
Shadow, Sherlock Holmes, and
Superman
• the era's most popular radio
serial was "Amos and Andy," in
which two white actors played a
group of Harlem Negroes, using
dialect and broad stereotypes
for comic effect (now
considered politically incorrect
and offensive)
• top three songs before
Halloween, 1935: "I'm in the
Mood for Love," "You're All I
Need," "Cheek to Cheek"
• the decade's wildest Halloween:
War of the Worlds, Orson
Welles' 1938 spoof broadcast
of a Martian invasion that many
listeners took seriously, causing
a panic
Sources: Time-Life Books This
Fabulous Century, Vol. 4: 19301940 (1969) and Marc McCutcheon,
Writer's Guide to Everyday Life from
Prohibition through World War II
(1995)
In the Great Depression: the Novel's 1933-35
TIMELINE
The 1920s: post-World War I boom, industry
thriving, Wall Street profits skyrocketing
with a bull market. Hemlines shorten and
music swings
September 3, 1929: Wall Street alltime high
Sept. and Oct. 1929: stock market
prices drop steeply amid panic
selling that feeds the decline
October 24, 1929: Black Thursday;
the stock market drops six billion
dollars, and more the next week
November, 1929: stock market
bottoms out
December 1929: stock market
recovers, but damage already done
to American economy
1930: 4 million workers unemployed
and 1,000 banks fail, taking with them
families' life savings
1931: by start of year over 8 million workers
unemployed; President Herbert Hoover
grants farmers funds to buy livestock feed
but remains staunchly against the "dole,"
that is, any government relief funds so
people can buy food. By December more
than 13.5 million workers—56% of blacks
and 40% of whites—are unemployed,
leaving over 30 million family members
hungry and many homeless
1932: the peak/depth of the Depression; a
severe drought seizes the Midwest and
beyond, creating Dust Bowl conditions;
people living in "Hoovervilles," large
camps of cardboard shelters for the
homeless with their "Hoover flags," empty
pockets; veterans and their families
gather in D.C. seeking help; Franklin D.
Roosevelt elected President
1933: the New Deal launched during first 100
days of Roosevelt's first term: $500 million
granted in relief funds for the destitute;
work for the unemployed through the WPA
and CCC; banks re-open. Federal Reserve
Board index of industrial production almost
doubles from March to June. Drought
worsens, with a massive dust storm from
Texas to Canada; farmers desperate.
Prohibition repealed; FBI launched.
Average life span is 59 years
1934: Depression begins to ease with lower
unemployment and fewer business
failures. Drought continues. Hilter
elected in Germany and boycotts Jewish
businesses
1935: Depression slowly diminishing; worst in
rural, agricultural America except far West,
leading to decade's "Okie" phenomenon
Living in America 1932-1934
INCOME
• Annual Earnings (average):
coal miner
$ 732.00
civil service employee $1,284.00
doctor
$3,382.00
hired farm hand
$ 216.00
lawyer
$4,218.00
live-in maid
$ 260.00
public school teacher $1,227.00
registered nurse
$ 936.00
U.S. congressman
$8,663.00
PRICES
• Automobile
new Pontiac or Dodge$ 590.00
new Chrysler
$ 995.00
new Chevy pickup $ 650.00
new tire
$
6.20
gasoline (gallon)
18¢
• Appliances
electric iron
$
2.00
vacuum cleaner
$ 18.75
electric washer
$ 47.96
• Clothing
women's wool suit
$ 3.98
women's leather shoes $ 1.79
men's wool suit
$ 10.50
men's trousers
$ 2.00
men's shoes
$ 3.85
• Food and Miscellaneous
sirloin steak (pound)
29¢
bacon or chicken (pound)
22¢
milk (quart)
10¢
eggs (dozen)
29¢
cheese (pound)
24¢
bread (loaf)
10¢
sugar (pound)
5¢
potatoes (pound)
2¢
cigarettes
15¢
console radio
$ 49.95
• Toys
doll carriage
$ 4.98
two-wheeled bicycle $ 10.95
fielder's glove and ball $ 1.25
BB air rifle
79¢
ASF 2013/ 5
To Kill a
Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
dramatized by
Christopher Sergel
Atticus: Heck, that boy
might go to the chair,
but he's not going till the
truth's told.… And you
know as well as I do what
the truth is.
Robert Duvall's first major film
role, as Boo Radley in the 1962 film
of To Kill a Mockingbird (with Mary
Badham, Gregory Peck, and Frank
Overton)
Below: Monroeville's South
Alabama Street. The house where
the recluse lived is in the trees near
the bottom; the Lees' former home
is several doors north.
Making Him Come Out: Shaping the Novel's Action
Most critics of To Kill a Mockingbird divide
the novel into the growing up section of the
children trying to get Boo Radley to come out and
later the adult section of Atticus's defense of Tom
Robinson with Bob Ewell's associated vendetta
and Boo's emergence. Undeniably, the novel
has a child's perspective on the world, but the
world that Scout, Jem, and Dill inhabit confronts
them with racism, class differences, patriarchy
and gender roles, economic challenges, lynch
mobs, and issues of education, current events,
and social complacency.
In every case, Harper Lee makes an effort
to get these subjects out in the open—with
Boo Radley as the emblem of this effort,
for what is brought out is then allowed to
return to its home. In terms of the novel,
however, keeping it out in the open or
solving it for all time may not be the
goal—the goal is that we have "finally
seen them" for what they are.
Boo Radley
The children do get "Boo" Radley
to come out long before they realize it.
He leaves them trinkets in the knothole
and mends Jem's pants that get hooked
on the fence. That elementary effort at
relationship is cemented over, forbidden, but Boo
Radley nonetheless proves to be attentive and
courageous—he covers the chilled Scout as she
watches the winter house fire and he defends
the children when Ewell attacks them. To be a
pitied and demonized figure in Maycomb, Arthur
Radley is one of the "seeingest" characters in the
novel, as Scout realizes on his front porch.
This behavior sets the novel's
pattern for demonized or belittled figures
or groups of people, for possibilities
of relationships that are forbidden by
individuals or society, and for strength
in times of need.
Calpurnia, Tom Robinson, and the
Negroes
A comparable "Boo" Radley aspect
of Maycomb society is race. Its black
population lives separately, with an
everyday domestic life and "separate
but unequal" existence largely unseen
by the white society for whom they are
domestics and field hands. In Maycomb,
the blacks are also labelled and judged as surely
as "Boo" is and with purported traits just as
fictive. Being hauled into court on a false charge
is not an ideal form of becoming seen, but in the
courtroom there is the jury's view and the reader's
view, very different degrees of seeing.
Calpurnia is the maternal force in two
families, Atticus's and her own. As "the help" in
the Finch home, she cooks, cleans, and tends the
children—telling Scout to behave and to come
home when she isn't ready to come, thus helping
to define the novel's basic tension between social
expectations and individual insight, whether it be
child's play or Miss Maudie's "handful of people"
who think as Atticus thinks. Calpurnia sees and
hears everything in the Finch home, exerting an
influence by her integrity and presence.
We meet Tom Robinson only at his trial and
in the report of his death, but we know him as
a good and decent man. Having already lost
the use of his left hand to a cotton gin when he
was a boy, his life is now imperiled by a judicial
"gin" where prejudice can prevail over truth. We
continue to be aware of the nearly invisible black
men and women who populate Maycomb; we
see them in the balcony of the courthouse as
more of this society's "ghosts."
Social Class and Economics in Maycomb
Near the end of the novel, Jem describes
the kinds of people in his world: "the ordinary
kind like us and the neighbors, there's the kind
like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the
kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the
Negroes." That certainly categorizes the world of
the novel. Scout, however, takes another view, "I
think there's just one kind of folks. Folks." With
a small town populace that quietly or actively
survives by looking down on someone else or
being looked down upon, Scout's view poses a
"what if"—what if social economics were not the
great demarcator; what if we're all just folks?
The novel demarcates social class with
Walter and Mr. Cunningham being privileged
with names amid the Old Sarum mob. Only Bob
Ewell and two of his children, Mayella and Burris,
stand for the poor whites, the ones Maycomb
considers "trash," a convenient label since they
live beside the dump. With the children we
see the difference most clearly at school, but
school alone cannot solve these divides. And as
Atticus notes, the Great Depression is a great
equalizer—no one has any money.
ASF 2013/ 6
To Kill a
Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
dramatized by
Christopher Sergel
Discussing the Novel
• Consider the value and
significance of:
--boundaries
--school
--the knothole
--the mad dog
--a hand crippled by a
cotton gin
--Halloween
• Consider the portrayal of
parents and children:
--Scout/ Jem/ Atticus
--Dill/ his parents
--Walter Cunningham/ Mr. Cunningham
--Burris/ Mayella/ Bob Ewell
--Arthur (Boo) Radley/
Nathan/ Mr. Radley
• Consider the image of
enclosure/entrapment/
escape:
--Boo Radley in his house
--Dill's being left in
Maycomb or his tale of being locked in a
basement
--Dill escaping to the movies
--Jem "forced" to read to Mrs. Dubose
--Mayella in impoverished life and perhaps forced into incest, yet planting geraniums and seeking a kiss
--Tom Robinson in a false rape charge and later in a prison camp behind a fence
--jury/society in prejudice
--Ewell in vicious frustration
and violent choices
--Scout in ham costume
Making Him Come Out: Shaping the Novel's Action/ 2
The Ladies
The arbiter of Finch family rectitude and
feminine propriety is Aunt Alexandra, though the
neighborhood is full of opinionated women—the
gossipy Miss Stephanie, the elderly Mrs. Dubose,
and insightful Miss Maudie. Most of them
demand that the children behave and especially
that Scout instantly become more ladylike. They
want her to come out of her overalls and join
them in their dresses. For Scout, the question
might actually be which lady to emulate. One
example her father offers is Mrs. Dubose for her
courage and determination to beat her addiction.
The society itself is addicted to a host of views,
all of which the novel makes come out for a
time, whether or not it can completely solve
them. For her part, Scout's choice throughout
the novel is, instead, to emulate her father, her
best guide to thoughtful understanding of her
world and its challenges.
Aunt Alexandra has no compunction about
letting Calpurnia serve at her church missionary
tea during Mrs. Merriweather's report on "the
poor Mrunas" of Africa, an intolerant comment
about a "sulky darky" after Tom Robinson's day
in court, and Mrs. Farrow's belief that ladies are
not safe in their beds. This scene, the satiric high
point (or low point) of the novel, is the women's
courtroom scene and equally as just. Where
Atticus speaks the truth in the courthouse, Miss
Maudie does the honors in the parlor.
Because Scout has no mother, her primary
female role model is missing. As a tomboy she
plays with boys, and she seeks love and advice
from her only remaining parent, her father.
Mayella, like Scout a girl without a mother,
finds only abuse at her father's hand, though
she reaches out for something more with the
geraniums and the kiss, a desperate recognition
of her lack. She seems unlikely to become a
"lady"; in fact, the community seems to ignore
her plight entirely and to lump her with her father
as a "Ewell," though the novel makes us see her
as distinct while she's on the witness stand.
Education
Scout's schooling is undoubtedly a focal
point of the novel in its opening chapters and
near the end, because the entire novel is a form
of learning—about society as a whole, other
people as groups, and individuals known and
less known. As Scout questions and sees, so
does the reader.
In first grade, Scout is told she can only
learn in school, a point her father and the novel
quickly compromise. Thus, rather than stifling
curiosity, the novel feeds it by asking, via Scout,
why things are as they are, a useful question as
we look at this microcosm of America.
Third grade thrusts the students into current
events, as the novel has been doing all along.
A report on the rise of Hitler and Nazi views
of the Jews comes via Cecil, the very student
who taunted Scout the year before about her
father "lawyering for niggers." The teacher
emphasizes how "they"—the Nazis—behave
by having the students repeat "democracy,"
"dictatorship," and "prejudice," ideas the novel
has been engaging since its beginning. In the
classroom, the question arises, "why don't they
like the Jews?" and Scout has made sure "why"
questions about Maycomb fill the novel. The
problem is not simply "over there": readers see
quite clearly that it lives at our fingertips, and
they are about to see violence and prejudice
erupt just beyond that very schoolyard, targeting
two students.
Boo Radley's emergence from his house
is a dramatic and essential element of To Kill
a Mockingbird, but he is not the only element
to emerge in the course of the narrative, nor is
he the only "mockingbird" whose vulnerability
we recognize.
Left, Mayella "common" geraniums, and above,
Mrs. Dubose's snow-on-the-mountain camellia
ASF 2013/ 7
To Kill a
Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
dramatized by
Christopher Sergel
The cover of the 1960 first
edition of To Kill a Mockingbird
Adapting the Novel: Discussion Topics
Harper Lee's novel is a narrative gold mine,
but not all of it will fit into a two-hour dramatic
experience. An adapter looks for action and
major conflicts, for defining moments, dramatic
climax, and character-clarifying scenes.
Students who are reading or who have read
the novel can benefit from thinking through the
issues of adaptation and the results of various
choices.
Narrative Voice
The novel's narrator, the older Jean Louise,
is as vital a part of To Kill a Mockingbird as the
young Scout's voice. Her explanations and
reflections provide an essential context for the
characters and action. The novel is a memory
piece and gains much of its power from the
interplay between adult narration and the child's
perspective in a scene. What would be the effect
of staging the story without the narrator, of just
putting the action on the stage in scenes? Is the
way the narrator stitches the events together
important? What does the narrator's voice add
to the novel?
In a way, this adaptation actually makes
both choices. It has a narrator's voice but gives
it to Miss Maudie as a commentator, a physical
presence who provides context for the audience
amid the scenes. She, too, watches and shares
the community's past with us. Her voice lends
perspective that the young Jean Louise does not
know or could not grasp. Yet without the voice of
the grown Jean Louise, our sense of the action
remains in the present, in 1935.
The Monroe County Courthouse in the 1930s
Incident
What scenes and incidents must be in
the play if it is accurately to be called To Kill a
Mockingbird? The trial, surely, the confrontation
the night before at the jail house, Bob Ewell's
attack on the children with Boo's saving action
at the end—all these are crucial. How much
else from the novel must be included? Some
of the children's efforts to get Boo to come out?
The knothole hiding place? School? Jem's
reading to Mrs. Dubose? Atticus's shooting
of the mad dog? Aunt Alexandra's missionary
society meeting?
Not everything will fit into a play, so what
is essential to set up the crucial events? The
trial is the climax of the novel, a crucial event.
What sets that up? What else must be in to
make that clear? Is the trial the entire story? It
makes the children witnesses and Atticus the
active force. How much of the story belongs to
the children, their relationship to Atticus, and
Dill's determination to get Boo to come out?
Characters
Lee fills her novel with a small town's worth
of characters, and all those within the children's
"boundaries" are fleshed out in our minds, as
are all the characters at Calpurnia's church,
people at the trial, and everyone who visits or
comes to call. Who is essential? The family,
certainly—does that include Aunt Alexandra?
Are all the neighbors vital? If not, who must
be shown? Deciding who and what to include
means deciding what is essential to the story,
what cannot be lost.
EXERCISE: Narrative Voice and Memory
Especially when the protagonist is a child,
a retrospective narrative voice is very useful, as
Proust and Dickens have shown. Harper Lee lets
the events have meaning in the present action
and also in retrospect from the brief but telling
comments of the narrator.
• Narrate a memorable incident from your
childhood involving curiosity or daring or
not understanding that uses the point of
view of the child you were then. (Be your
own "Scout.")
Then re-narrate the incident adding the
perspective you now have on the incident.
(Be "Jean Louise" considering and
commenting on your "Scout.")
What is the difference in effect between
these two narrations? What is the value of
each? Do you prefer the child's view, the
older view, or a blended view? Why?
ASF 2013/ 8
To Kill a
Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
dramatized by
Christopher Sergel
Issues to Consider
• What is the time span of the
novel? What time span will
best serve the needs of a
play? How long would it take
to show all the action of the
novel on stage?
• Consider the thematic effect
of these juxtapositions on
stage:
--opening of play: Atticus
"doesn't do anything
(chap. 10 of novel) to the
taunt "your daddy defends
niggers" (chap. 9 of novel).
Does the order matter?
-- Dill's plan to use lemon drops
to lure Boo out and Heck's
news that the Old Sarum
bunch may want to take
Tom Robinson out of jail
The children watch the Radley
house in ASF's 2006 production of
Mockingbird (Esther Workman, Zach
Looney, and Davis Vaughn)
Structuring Action for the Theatre
Harper Lee divides her novel into two parts,
a structure that fits the modern theatre's usual
two-act structure very neatly. In Lee's novel,
the break occurs after Mrs. Dubose's death and
Atticus's definition of courage; Part Two opens
with Jem and Scout's attending church with
Calpurnia and the arrival of Aunt Alexandra in
the fateful summer of 1935.
Looked at from a dramatic point of view, the
events that juxtapose Lee's break in the novel
are not the kind of plot events that will give a
strong finish to Act One of a play or a strong
drive to the start of the second act, though they
serve the needs of the novel well. Consider why
Lee used these events in the novel and why a
play might make other choices.
Plays—like television shows before a
commercial—need sharp, strong beginnings
and endings to their component parts. In 19thcentury theatre, the "curtain" moment at the end
of every act was carefully crafted for maximum
effect, and that tradition still influences the
structure of performance art forms today.
The first decision made for a theatrical
adaptation is to shorten the time span of the
novel. Rather than show several summers
and several years at school on the way to the
climactic summer of the trial, a stage adaptation
will move all the action to the climactic summer,
so the action encompasses a tighter arc. That
choice materially alters the sense of the story
in some ways, but it does heighten dramatic
tension. Thus, unlike the novel, in the stage
adaptation Jem and Scout meet Dill in the
summer of the trial. Their friendship is now just
weeks long, not years
long (and how significant
a difference is that?).
Moreover, they are older
when they get fascinated
with Boo.
Despite these
changes, the action of
the play still falls into the
novel's basic categories:
1) the children's private
world, much of which
involves a curiosity about
Boo, 2) the children's
relationship at home with
Atticus and Calpurnia,
and 3) the larger public
world of Maycomb that
holds the trial and harbors prejudices. While
both acts of the play involve all three categories
of action, the first act is largely the children's
world and the home world, climaxing with the
night at the jail and start of the trial; Act Two is
largely the trial and its aftermath.
While the drive of the play inevitably seems
straighter and flatter than the novel's, too much
change to the story of To Kill a Mockingbird would
cause outcry. Consequently, the adaptation is—
in spirit and central action if not in scope—very
faithful to the novel.
Assess the Choices the Script Makes:
• the novel's time frame, summer 1933 to fall
1935, is compressed to the summer and
fall of 1935, so much of the growing up
story is lost. What is its role in the novel?
• the novel's action does not introduce Cecil's
taunt that Atticus "defends niggers" until
chapter 9 (of 31 chapters), during the
second autumn narrated. In the play
that taunt occurs on the second page of
dialogue. How well do we know Scout
when she and we meet this climactic issue
in the play?
• the narrative voices blend effortlessly
in the novel as the memory and the
action meld. In the novel, Scout's voice
seems to dominate and she voices her
own ideas. Having Miss Maudie ofer an
adult perspective follows the spirit of the
novel but not its letter of having Scout's
perspective young and grown dominate.
• what gets omitted: all the school
experiences and lessons (from learning
to read to learning about Hitler); Walter
coming to lunch; some knothole gifts and
most efforts to get Boo out; snow and
snowman; Miss Maudie's house burning;
Christmas in Finch's Landing; Uncle Jack
and Aunt Alexandra; going to Calpurnia's
church; Dolphus Raymond; discussion of
justice after trial; "our kind of people"; the
missionary circle; Ewell's other vengeful
acts; reading the Gray Ghost. What role do
these elements play in the novel?
ASF 2013/ 9
To Kill a
Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
dramatized by
Christopher Sergel
"To Kill a Mockingbird
had a lot to do with [changing
the racial climate of the
South] in the same way that
Uncle Tom's Cabin woke
people up to injustice 100
years earlier."
—Mark Childress, novelist and Monroeville native
Identifying the Real Crime—Prejudice
As Atticus Finch ably proves in the
courtroom, in Tom Robinson's case there is no
proof a crime was committed and in fact none
was. But Harper Lee's novel seems to believe
the equivalent of criminal acts occur in society
when prejudice foments division, intolerance,
and injustice.
Scout runs into the brick wall of racial
prejudice when Cecil taunts her about her
father "lawyering for niggers." In asking Atticus
about the case, she repeats the taunt she has
heard, "Atticus, do you defend niggers?" Atticus
first addresses the use of that term, "Don't say
'nigger,' Scout. That's common," and Scout
instantly changes her speech. "That's common"
is exceptionally powerful phrasing, suggesting
both class and economic issues as well as the
widespread judgmental use of the term.
"Why does Mrs. Dubose make it sound like
you're runnin' a still?" Scout asks her father.
Atticus believes the promise of "freedom and
justice for all," but the town sees his defending
Tom as outside the boundaries of the social
mores they use instead the law. So to what
extent social mores shape the process of justice
is a question the novel asks (twice). And these
boundaries are nicely paralleled in the novel
by the boundaries given the children for play,
Mrs. Dubose's yard on one side and the Radley
place on the other, boundaries which the children
immediately try to exceed.
In the play, Scout and Atticus first discuss
the court case immediately before the mad dog
scene, a telling juxtaposition for the drama.
Atticus—"Ol' One Shot," as his children are
The old Monroeville jail
surprised to learn—fells the rabid dog with a
single bullet. He will do the same for the blatant
racism in Bob Ewell's accusation against Tom
Robinson, but cannot stop the prejudicial
"madness" as easily.
As a result of shooting the mad dog,
Miss Maudie tells the children, "If your father's
anything, he's civilized in his heart." For a
town in which a false charge of rape brings
out savagery and the threat of lynching, the
presence of one civilized man proves to be very
important. Atticus clarifies the link between the
mad dog and the prejudice when he explains to
Scout, "Why reasonable people go stark raving
mad when anything involving a Negro comes
up is something I don't pretend to understand."
This pattern of mad dog and prejudice may
also pick up Mrs. Dubose, who seems at least
angry-mad in her vitriol, but she is fighting an
addiction, which adds another element to the
image cluster.
"Are we going to win it?" Scout asks Atticus
about the court case. "No, honey.… Simply
because we were licked a hundred years before
we started is no reason for us not to try to win."
The prejudice is deeply rooted, but, as Atticus
points out in this novel from the Civil Rights era,
that is no reason to accept the prejudice, no
reason "not to try to win." The case is for Tom
Robinson's life and more; it is for openness,
honesty, and equality, as Atticus clearly sees,
and he also knows that this time "we're fighting
our friends."
Racism is not the only prejudice the novel
considers, of course—class and economic
difference, religious/ethnic difference (Hitler and
the Jews), and gender also figure in the novel.
If prejudice is unjust and damaging, often to all
concerned, what fuels it and why does it continue
to foment problems in the modern world? Must
there be prejudice?
Researching Prejudice
Research the history or prejudice against
African Americans, Jews, Hispanics, Asians,
Irish, and other immigrant groups in American
history. When and how has the prejudice arisen?
What were its consequences? How has it been
addressed?
The Southern Poverty Law Center's
"Teaching Tolerance" program has many online
materials about combating prejudice, bullying,
and other issues. Get information at:
http://www.splcenter.org/what-we-do/
teaching-tolerance
ASF 2013/ 10
To Kill a
Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
dramatized by
Christopher Sergel
Author Harper Lee with the
Atticus of the 1962 film of To Kill a
Mockingbird, Gregory Peck
For more on assessments of
Atticus, see Christopher Metress,
"The Rise and Fall of Atticus Finch,"
Chattahoochee Review 24:1 (Fall
2003): 95-102; rpt. Critical Insights:
To Kill a Mockingbird, ed. Don Noble
(Pasadena: Salem Press, 2010),
83-93.
Assessing Atticus
Atticus Finch makes his view of racism,
prejudice, and what's right very clear in Harper
Lee's novel, and his is not a lone voice. Many
readers view Atticus as a strong and heroic
figure, telling the necessary truth in the face of
apparently insurmountable social opposition.
Increasingly over the years since the
novel's publication, however, some readers
have questioned Atticus's behavior. Is he active
enough in confronting his society's prejudices?
As a lawyer and more importantly as a state
legislator, did he take action to change what
needed changing? Or did he just state his own
view and then passively let a racist verdict
prevail, like Pilate washing his hands? Does
he excuse prejudicial behavior as society just
"having blind spots"? Is taking—and losing—this
one case doing enough to address the wrongs
he sees?
Maycomb society divides on the question,
many castigating Atticus and taunting his
involvement, while some respect him, usually
more privately, such as Miss Maudie in her
comments to the children. Is this private
comment enough? Should Miss Maudie barge
into the parlor and confront the other ladies with
their hypocrisy, or should she quietly comment
to Aunt Alexandra and Scout in the kitchen?
By contrast, Tom Robinson takes action;
he climbs the fence to try to escape the death
penalty falsely assigned him while Atticus works
on an appeal. To some readers, the law seems
too undramatic and inadequate a means in
these circumstances—we need the cavalry to
ride over the hill, guns blazing. Ironically, during
the 1950s while the novel was being written,
the civil rights movement actively focused on
changing laws.
The trial
( A S F, 2 0 0 6
with Rodney
Clark and Esau
Pritchett)
WATCHING THE WORDS
A common form of literary analysis involves
triangulating what a character says, what is said
about him, and what he does.
Consider the value of Atticus's comments
and statements made about him:
Atticus
• "You never really understand a person
until you consider things from his point of
view… until you climb into his skin and
walk around in it."
• "I'm going to defend that man.… [His
case] goes to the essence of a man's
conscience."
• "One thing that doesn't abide by majority
rule—a person's conscience."
• "Heck, that boy might go to the chair, but
he's not going till the truth's told."
• "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."
• "There is one way in this country in which all
men are created equal…. That institution,
gentlemen, is a court…. and in our courts
all men are created equal."
• "I won't live one way in town and another
way in my home."
About Atticus
• "He's civilized in his heart." (Miss Maudie)
• "A Finch … lawing for niggers! … What's
this world come to with the Finches going
against their raising? Your father's no
better than the trash he works for!" (Mrs.
Dubose)
• "…there are some men in this world who
were born to do our unpleasant jobs for
us. Your father's one of them.… We're so
rarely called on to be Christians, but when
we are, we've got men like Atticus to go for
us.… We're paying your father the highest
tribute we can pay a man. We trust him to
do right." (Miss Maudie)
DISCUSSION
• What constitutes heroism? How heroic is
Atticus Finch in this story? Should we
admire him as much as some in the story
do? Does he do enough to deserve to be
so admired? What is enough to be a hero
when confronting prejudice and one's
society? Is this a prejudice he endures,
and would that make any difference?
Make your case and state your reasons.
ASF 2013/ 11
To Kill a
Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
dramatized by
Christopher Sergel
Designing ASF's 2013 To Kill a Mockingbird
ASF's Resident Set Designer Peter Hicks
calls the design for To Kill a Mockingbird
"selective realism"—the most significant
elements are fully rendered and other elements
less detailed. The Finch house faces the Radley
home across the stage, while upstage ("up the
street") a unit suggests the neighbors' homes.
Director Diana Van Fossen observes
that because the entire town functions as the
"courtroom" for the action, the town elements
adapt on stage to form the courtroom. The
upstage steps pull out to become the judge's
dais with a flag flown behind it, the gallery above
becomes the courtroom balcony, the Radley
home tracks off, and the attorneys' tables and
spectators' chairs are carried in.
Costume designer Pamela Scofield
says that the garments will look and feel like
faded, well worn clothes rather than too clean,
"theme-park" costumes. Period photographs
provided insight and inspiration for costumes,
as some of Scofield's research photos at right
demonstrate.
Pamela Scofield's costume
designs for Scout, Atticus
and Mayella
1930s'
photos
from
Scofield's
research
ASF 2013/ 12
To Kill a
Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
dramatized by
Christopher Sergel
Pre- and Post-Show Activities
LITERATURE
Quotation for Discussion or Writing
• from the scene in which Scout asks Atticus
about taking the Tom Robinson case:
Scout: Atticus, you must be wrong.
Atticus: How's that?
Scout: Well, most folks seem to think that
they're right and you're wrong.
Atticus: They're certainly entitled to think that,
and they're entitled to full respect for their
opinions. But before I can live with other
folks I've got to live with myself. The one
thing that does not abide by majority rule,
honey, is a person's conscience.
What is the basis for judging right and
wrong? How many factors go into forming
a person's conscience? What effect
does society have versus the effect
of conscience on one's attitude and
behavior?
The majority rule issue in context of
conscience provides a ready comparison
with the discussion of those topics in
the opening of Henry David Thoreau's
"Civil Disobedience" and in Martin Luther
King's "Letter from Birmingham City Jail."
The other side of those issues is well
expressed by Socrates in Plato's Crito, the
death scene dialogue.
The "Scottsboro Boys" put
on trial and accused of raping two
white women on a train in north
Alabama in the 1930s. Their trial
made national headlines.
Setting
• Certain settings provide authors with a
microcosm of society, because by looking
at the few we recognize the many, the
larger perspective of human activity
and belief. A ship is often used as a
microcosm; Chaucer used a pilgrimage to
Canterbury as a microcosm; others have
used a wagon train headed West or a raft
headed down the Mississippi River—a
particular journey can reflect life's journey.
Does a small town work as such a
microcosm? How universal is Maycomb?
Why not set the story in L.A. or Atlanta?
• Are Harper Lee and Truman Capote the
only Alabama writers who come from
Monroeville? Why does Monroeville sell
tourists bottled water called "Inspiration"?
Also see the topics on earlier pages of these
study materials.
HISTORY
•In the story, Atticus's legal "victory" is
considered to be keeping the (presumably
prejudiced) jury out so long before the
guilty verdict is returned. Research the
historical context of racial views, Jim Crow,
and civil rights in 1935, when the action
occurs, and in the 1950s to 1960, when
the novel was written and published.
• To what extent are economics and class
a factor in the action? To what extent, if
any, is the lynch mob different from Mrs.
Dubose's views or the schoolyard taunts?
What were the legal circumstances for
Negroes (the term then used) in the 1930s
and in the 1950s? Is racism exclusively a
Southern issue? What—and where—was
the experience of the civil rights era in the
U.S.? Is racism still a relevant issue in
America?
• Though Harper Lee is believed to have used
a Monroeville court case as background
for the trial, a major racial incident in
Alabama close to the action of To Kill a
Mockingbird is the famous Scottsboro
case against nine black men accused of
raping two white women in a boxcar on
a train in 1931. The case made national
news and was a widely observed legal
battle with innuendoes and complications
not unlike those in the Tom Robinson
case.
Several websites offer useful information and
background on the Scottsboro incident.
See Wikipedia or find much more at:
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/
scottsboro/scottsb.htm
• How does context—such as the bombing of
the World Trade Center—affect society's
awareness of its minority groups? Look
at racial/country of origin descriptions on
census forms used in America through its
history and research why specific groups
are "identified" at a given time.
ASF 2013/ 13
To Kill a
Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
dramatized by
Christopher Sergel
Pre- and Post-Show Activities
SOCIAL STUDIES/ SOCIOLOGY
Research or Group Discussion
• What effect does poverty have on people?
During the Great Depression, many people
became poor who had never experienced
poverty before—what is the difference
between the experience of chronic poverty
and of sudden economic collapse? How
do people cope? How does society
respond? What effect on self-image and
relationships, on class and status does
poverty have?
• With the events of the novel set in the Great
Depression, times are hard—does that
also heighten or harden social tolerance?
Research conditions in Alabama during
the Depression; look at the WPA pictures;
learn more about the world in which the
action occurs and how that context shapes
the action and how it affected Alabama
during that era.
• How does prejudice against other social
groups—ethnic groups or races—arise?
What is its source? Is it passed down by
individuals or by society as a whole? How
does one recognize and address prejudice
in oneself and in others? Where in the
novel does there seem to be recognition
and potential for progress, and where in
the novel does prejudice seem deeply
engrained? Why?
• The novel looks at gender identity—being
a man or becoming a lady. How does the
novel define "man" and "lady" and do our
current views agree with that definition?
Divide into groups and define male and
female gender roles, role models, and
challenges in the novel and in society
today.
ART
• The novel contains an abundance of
powerful imagery. Design a cover for the
novel or a poster for the production using
imagery from the book. Write a paragraph
about why you chose this imagery.
• Make a collage of the imagery in the novel,
choosing to focus on the point of view of:
--the children
--Jean Louise, the grown narrator, and her memories
--Atticus
--Calpurnia and Tom Robinson
--the Cunninghams
--the Ewells
• (for younger students) Build a tree with a
knothole on a bulletin board. Make friends
with either Boo Radley or with one of the
children in the novel by leaving him or her
something simple from your life that s/he
might like or be intrigued by. Put a short
paragraph on the bulletin board about
why you left that particular item for that
character. (Make your choice of item as
simple as Boo makes his choice of items
for the children. He didn't buy any of the
items; he had them or made them.)
BIOLOGY
• Research mockingbirds and check the
accuracy of the novel's description of
that species's behavior. Why is it called a
mockingbird? How much of the U.S. has
mockingbirds? How much of the world?
Is this a local or a national/international
image?
• Feed the Cunninghams. The novel makes
it clear that the Cunninghams have
trouble getting enough to eat and that
meat is a rarity in their diet. They must
eat beans and a largely vegetarian diet
supplemented by hunting. What foods
would be available to the Cunninghams
in south Alabama in the 1930s, and how
could they design their diet to stay healthy
without buying much? As a farmer, what
crop(s) might Mr. Cunningham grow?
What would be in his garden? Study the
table on p. 4 about income and food prices
during the mid-1930s. Research online to
get more information about diet, gardens,
or prices.
ASF 2013/ 14
To Kill a
Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
dramatized by
Christopher Sergel
Online Resources for Teaching the Novel
Teacher Resources:
• Web English Teacher has a site with quizzes, projects, word guides and exercises, and many
other resources at: www.webenglishteacher.com/lee.html
• www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/tokil/mocktg.htm
This site from the San Diego schools has study units on the novel
• mockingbird.chebucto.org/
This site has Harper Lee interviews and biographical information, FAQ, further reading,
links to Monroeville, to other Mockingbird sites, and to historical information about the Scottsboro
Boys and Emmett Till as well as Truman Capote
• www.swisseduc.ch/english/readinglist/leeh/index.html
This site has a synopsis of the novel, comments and questions, and context.
• www.slc.k12.ut.us/webweavers/jillc/mbird.html
This site provides a unit on growing up in the 1930s
• rs6.loc.gov/learn/lessons/98/mock/intro.html
Lessons plans for working with the novel
• library.thinkquest.org/12111/
This site has two teleconferences on the book and the film, including instructional
activities
Basics for Students Not Reading the Novel
If your students are not reading the novel, a basic synopsis and information about
character, theme, and imagery are available at:
www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Belmont_HS/tkm/
www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/
www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/titles/killmockingbird/
www.novelguide.com/tokillamockingbird/index.html
The Monroeville courthouse as
seen from the judge's bench
ASF 2013/ 15
To Kill a
Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
dramatized by
Christopher Sergel
2012-2013 SchoolFest Sponsors
Supported generously by the Roberts and Mildred Blount Foundation.
PRESENTING SPONSOR
Alabama Department of Education
SPONSORS
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CO-SPONSORS
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PARTNERS
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PATRONS
Central Alabama Community Foundation
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Photos:
Sayed Alamy