BACKGROUND INFORMATION: To Kill a Mockingbird English 11

TKaM Background---Harper Lee The author of To Kill a Mockingbird is Harper Lee. Lee was born in Monroeville, AL---a town much like Maycomb, the town which is the setting of the novel. Lee was born April 28, 1926, and died February 19, 2016, in Monroeville; Lee’s given name is Nelle Harper Lee. Lee’s father was a small-town lawyer who largely provided the background for the character of Atticus Finch; her mother was a descendant of the Robert E. Lee family.

TKaM Background---Harper Lee Lee studied law at the University of Alabama but quit before earning her law degree, turning to writing as her full-time career. For years, TKaM was the only novel to Lee’s credit; novel was not only a commercial success but also won many awards, including the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Movie version won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1963.

TKaM---Structure of the Novel PART I: This section serves as an introductory section and deals with the children’s effort to lure Boo Radley, the neighborhood recluse, into the “light of day.” PART II: This section centers on Atticus’s failure to achieve an acquittal for Tom Robinson, who is accused of raping a white woman, and Atticus’s subsequent success in luring the truth about the the crime into the courtroom.

TKaM---Setting and Atmosphere TKaM is set in the imaginary disctrict of Maycomb County in southwestern Alabama, about thirty miles from Selma. The story begins during the summer of 1933 and ends on Halloween night 1935. The novel takes place during the Great Depression; throughout the nation, there was widespread poverty and unemployment; and President Roosevelt was trying to improve the situation with his “New Deal” program. Maycomb is slow to react to the Depression-- -the area had always been poor and underdeveloped, so the Depression inflicts nothing new to the county: poor simply become poorer.

TKaM---Setting and Atmosphere After Reconstruction, blacks lost many rights. Common for blacks in this time to receive low wages as field workers and house servants (EX. Calpurnia). Farmers owned their own land but income was small. Maycomb is relatively isolated so little change---population has been mostly unchanged for years; newcomers and new ideas are not accepted easily. Religion viewed as both positive and negative---ultra-religious often unkind.

TKaM---Setting and Atmosphere Progress comes slow to Maycomb; segregation was still the law in the South including Maycomb for many years--- many “hidden laws” as well. Southern caste (class) structure is well established in Maycomb---this will come into conflict with deep-seated prejudice. Small town provides unusual characters which the townspeople come to tolerate.

TKaM---Point of View Lee uses Scout (Jean Louise) Finch to tell the story as a first- person narrator; everything seen is told through Scout’s eyes as an adult looking back at what happened in her life during that time. THIS CAN BE BOTH POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE. Scout tells the story of herself as she ages from 6 to 8 in order to truly understand it for the first time. The story is NOT told by a six-year-old narrator; Scout is trying to remember and record her world as it appeared to her when she was a child. Lee confines Scout’s observations to two categories: 1)what she really believes she saw, heard, felt, and thought at the time 2)her re-evaluation of the events (rarely seen in the novel)

TKaM---Theme Various themes are addressed in TKaM: loss of innocence power of prejudice courage role of religion understanding other people role of education

TKaM---Literary Period At the time of the novel’s publication (1960), the civil rights movement was at its height. At this time, many major events occurred that had a direct effect on the civil rights movement: murder of Emmett Till in Mississippi bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama establishment of the SCLC with MLK, Jr. as president integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas sit-in at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina Freedom Riders 1964: passage and signing of the Civil Rights Act---banned discrimination because of a person’s color, sex, origin, etc.