To Kill a Mockingbird: An Introduction
One of the most influential novels in American history. Rated, after the Bible, as one book “most often cited as making a difference” in people’s lives Considered the one book “every adult should read before they die” by British librarians Voted the “Best Novel of the 20th century” by readers of the Library Journal Ranked fifth on the Modern Library’s Reader’s List of the 100 Best Novels in the English language since 1900
So what’s so special about To Kill a Mockingbird?
“Literature helps us to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own.” ~ C.S. Lewis
“The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think.” ~James McCosh
Reading---and thinking---requires careful attention to detail
Pay careful attention to the butterfly in the following picture: What is it flying to? What color is it?
Pay careful attention to the woman in the following picture: Is her eye open or closed? What color is her lipstick?
You can learn to... see things differently.
Questions to ask yourself while reading To Kill a Mockingbird: What am I learning –to see with “other eyes, –to imagine with other imaginations, and –to feel with other hearts”? What is this book making me think about?
The Author Nelle Harper Lee, 34 year- old woman Born (1926) and raised in Monroeville, AL Daughter of Amasa Lee, a small-town lawyer and widower Law school drop out, 1949 Childhood friend of author Truman Capote
The Setting Maycomb, Alabama, a tiny (fictional) town, much like the real town of Monroeville.
small-town Alabama, 1930s
Courthouse Monroeville, Alabama
An Alabama Sharecropper’s Home, 1936
African American church in Alabama in the 1930s
The Setting Early 1930’s, during the Great Depression
The Scottsboro Boys Nine African American teenagers falsely accused of rape. The investigations and trials lasted 6 years
A white lawyer, Sam Leibowitz, defended the accused boys.
The Dust Bowl in Oklahoma created problems... and extreme poverty in every state in America.
Franklin D. Roosevelt succeeded Herbert Hoover as President
King Kong, the hit movie of 1933
Lou Gerhig and Babe Ruth were the most famous baseball players in America
America in the 1950s while Harper Lee was writing To Kill a Mockingbird
Southern states opposed school integration
May 1954: Supreme Court Orders School Integration
August 1955: A 14 year-old Chicago boy, Emmett Till, is murdered in Mississippi
Till’s killers are tried for murder and are declared “not guilty” by an all-white jury.
The Characters Narrator: Scout Finch, six-year-old girl Atticus Finch, Scout’s father, widower, & small-town lawyer Jem Finch, Scout’s older brother Dill Harris, strange, pint-sized summer neighbor ‘Boo’ Radley, mysterious & reclusive neighbor Tom Robinson, African American man accused of rape Bob Ewell, poor red-neck racist
Atticus teaches Scout an important lesson
The Story Set in small-town Alabama in the 1930s Spans three years Narrated by Scout 3 children learn about life by witnessing the complicated problems facing adults in their small Alabama town.
Boo Radley’s house
What will To Kill a Mockingbird make you think about? What can you learn from reading it?
“If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. 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.” ~Atticus Finch, TKAM, p. 34
Whose skin will Scout get to climb into?
What kind of people do we need to understand?
“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s garden’s, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hears out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” ~Miss Maudie, TKAM, page 94
Who will turn out to be the “mockingbirds” in this story?
Who was excluded from mainstream American life in the 1930s? The 1950s? The 2000s?
What will Scout and Jem learn about life and about human nature?
Who will Scout---and you---learn... to see differently?
To learn more about Harper Lee
PowerPoint presentation prepared by Chris Crowe, Professor of English, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.