To Kill a Mockingbird By Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird is an American classic that has successfully remained in the canon throughout several decades since its release in the summer of 1960. The novel is narrated by a young girl named Jean-Louise, nicknamed Scout, who tells stories from her upbringing in the 1930s, in Maycomb, Alabama, in a way that makes readers wonder if they are merely reading the pages of her youthful diary. Scout is the personification of a classic tomboy and spends all her free-time with her older brother, Jeremy, nicknamed Jem. The children’s mother died when Scout was young, leaving them under the care of their father, Atticus Finch, who is a prominent lawyer in town. For when their father isn’t around, the kids have their cook/nanny, Calpurnia, a younger black woman, who often takes it upon herself to teach the children lessons on life, compassion, and manners. Although the rest of town is suffering through The Great Depression, the Finch family has fewer qualms than most when it comes to money, due to their social status and Atticus’s professional success. One summer, a boy named Charles, nicknamed Dill, comes to Maycomb to stay with his aunt and is quickly befriended by the Finch siblings. Dill is ultimately the one to begin questioning the mystery behind Mr. Arthur Radley, nicknamed Boo, a mysterious man who lives in a house on the corner of their street. Many rumors about Boo’s isolated lifestyle have spread throughout the town, and the kids quickly cultivate a desire to be the lead investigators of the mysteries of Boo and Radley Place.

Harper Lee Born in 1927 in Monroeville, Alabama Her father practiced law and, as a child, she used to sit up in the courthouse balcony watching her father work Originally intended on becoming a lawyer herself. After law school, she was working in New York when a friend inspired her to write a book on growing up in the South during the Great Depression

Harper Lee Cont… It took Lee four years to complete the To Kill a Mockingbird we know of today The novel was eventually published in July, 1960 One year later, it was still on the best-sellers list and had captured both a Pulitzer Prize and a major movie contract. Harper Lee eventually returned to Monroeville, Alabama, and set up her writing studio in the same office where her father had practiced law.

History Surrounding To Kill a Mockingbird “Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself.” —allusion to President Roosevelt’s speech The Great Depression 1929: The stock market crash set into motion a series of events that plunged America into its greatest economic depression to date By 1933, 16 million Americans were unemployed. As many as 1 in 4 were without a job while the rest suffered pay cuts. In 1935, when To Kill a Mockingbird is set, The Works Project Administration (WPA) was just being enacted to soothe unemployment.

History Surrounding To Kill a Mockingbird Cont… To Kill a Mockingbird is set during the Jim Crow era These laws legally separated blacks from whites since 1890 In 1954, Brown v. Board of Education was won. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was published in July 1960; it is a novel that came at the beginning of a decade full of some prominent social, cultural, and political movements, scandals, and trends. The previous decade had come with its own conflicts, such as the budding civil rights movement that entered the American mainstream after the landmark court case, Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which argued that separating education facilities was fundamentally unequal. Before this case, there had been failed attempts by blacks to fight back against Jim Crow laws, a series of laws that stated that blacks and whites could not use the same facilities. Most notably, in 1896, Homer Plessy became a household name as he became the first to take his case to court for the violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment(Thomas). Plessy’s case was a direct protest of train car separation.

As You Read… Literary Devices

Device Example Humor the quality of being amusing or comic   Dill: “I’m little, but I’m old.” Mr. Radley “’bought cotton,’ a polite term for doing nothing.” Irony the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect. Atticus’s first two clients “were the last two persons hanged in the Maycomb County jail.” Skillful Use of Repetition the action of repeating something that has already been said or written “Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it.” Euphemism a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing “…disturbance between the North and South” Allusion an expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference “Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself.” “Thus we came to know Dill as a pocket Merlin.”