Elena Călin (Marin)

Book review

'To kill a Mockingbird'

by Harper Lee

Reviewer: Elena Mădalina Marin (căs. Călin),

Faculty of Letters, 2nd Year
English- Italian specialization
Book reviewed: Harper Lee, 'To Kill A Mockingbird',
Arrow Books, London, 50th Anniversary Edition

1. General information about the author and the book:

Harper Lee was born on April 26th, 1916, in Monroeville, Alabama and died in 2016. She
studied law at the University of Alabama, but never finished it.
After 'To Kill a Mockingbird', a second novel, 'Go Set a Watchman', was published much later,
although written back in 1957, initially designed to be the third part of a trilogy never
completed.2
'To Kill a Mockingbird' was first published in 1960 and it soon became a bestseller. The
author was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961, and the following year a movie was
made based on the story of the novel. Even the movie was a success, receiving three Oscars.1
The title of the book refers to the local belief that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird3, a
theme that will appear throughout the events of the novel at different levels of interpretation. In a
conversation, the lawyer Atticus Finch tells her daughter (the narrator of the story) : 'Shoot all
the blue jays you want if you can hit them, but remember, it is a sin to kill a mockingbird'.
The book reviewed, the edition of the 50th Anniversary, is structured in 31 chapters,
grouped in two parts. The first part finishes with the eleventh chapter, the second part thus begins
with chapter 12. Analyzing the plot structure, the second part begins even earlier, when the major
event in the protagonist' s life occurs: the trial. Although the book has a total of 309 pages, a
captivating and profound story is arising in the pace of the narrator's slowly revelation of the
world and mostly her lessons in relating to the community.

2. Summary of the book:

The book is a bildungsroman written in the first person, but from the perspective of an
adult person who recollects the events from her life that took place when she was a young child,
from six to eight years. Therefore, the book covers almost three years, and it is dated in the
1930's in a Southern place of the United States. The story refers to the years 1933 until 1935,
and it takes place in the fictitious town of Maycomb, Alabama, symbol of the traditional small
town form the Southern United States.
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Book review

A circular composition is used, as the narrator begins by alluding the accident which led
her brother to have his arm broken, at the end of the story being described the way her brother is
recovering the first night after that incident.
How it was arrived to that accident is a long story, the narrator, a six years old girl named
Jane Louise (Scout) Finch, beginning by presenting her family's history. At present she lives in
Maycomb with her father, Atticus Finch, a lawyer, and her elder brother Jem. During the first
part, she describes the childish curiosities that the two siblings and a playmate, Dill, have for a
neighbor's house where it is supposed to be living a recluse person, Boo (Arthur) Radley, who is
guarded by his brother. The children from the small community have a terrifying image about
Boo, although nobody knows exactly what kind of person he is. The children have many
attempts to make him come out of his house, during one of which they get almost shot by the
guardian brother. During their frightened run, Jem is forced to leave his trousers that remained
hung on a fence. When coming back to pick them, he finds them carefully folded and sewed.
Another clue of Boo's presence and that he actually might not be as evil as the others consider
him is the fact that the children continuously receive gifts in a hole from a tree throughout the
winter until they have the idea to write a thankful note that is probably read by Boo's brother
who cements that hole.
Scout begins school and has several difficulties arising from the fact that she already
knows to read. We are presented one of the Ewells, a 'colleague' of hers, that abandons school
after one day of participation, his father being the one who starts the trial with which he accuses
Tom Robinson, an African American, to have raped his daughter, Ayella. Although evidence is
against the Ewells, the white jury cannot give another verdict than guilty. Tom Robinson is killed
while he is trying to escape the prison after being convicted to death. The children attend the trial
and later Jem and Scout become victims of Ewell's revenge on their father who, in the process,
affected his credibility in the small community by demonstrating that, in fact, it was Ewell
himself who beat his daughter when seeing her approaching Robinson. Ewell attacks the siblings
while they are returning from a school event, and, in the incident, Jem has his arm broken. They
are saved by Boo Radley who stabs Ewell, but the local sheriff decides that is better to consider
the death an accident in which Ewell himself felt on his knife. Scout agrees to the decision
realizing that fame for Boo will be like 'killing a mockingbird'.

3. Personal opinion:

The book has many layers of understanding and interpretations, due to the fact that the
events are presented through the eyes of a six-year girl, but at an adult moment of recollection.
The plot is not intricate, but it seems unlikely that a child should have lived such events. This is
only explainable by the fact that she is the daughter of a lawyer in a period immediately after the
Great Depression and in a society in which changing mentalities undergoes a generational
process. Atticus Finch, with his wisdom, affirms that : 'this time we aren't fighting the Yankees,

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Book review

we're fighting our friends'. We are thus introduced in the American traditions and presented
some cultural aspects of a South in which the racial issues are still very powerful.
The lecture does not allow any skimming as it is very concentrated. The book has a
difficult syntax structure and a high level of erudition, but it turns out captivating and full of
wisdom. It is full of symbols, one example is the snowman that the children are trying to build
with the little snow that had fallen in their region. Their solution is to build the balls from mud
and then cover them on the outside with some snow. Thus, the snowman symbolizes the society
with its negative stereotypes against black people, or the man himself hypocrite and hidden.
After hearing the jury's decision in the specified trial, Dell has a moment of rebellion against the
cruelty of the world that makes him affirm that as a grown up, he thinks he'll be a clown because
' there ain't one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I'm going to join the
circus and laugh my head off.' Jem, more mature, replies that he got it backwards. "Clowns are
sad, it's folks that laugh at them...'
Although the book is narrated by Scout, the protagonist is undoubtedly her father, Atticus Finch,
who seems to be the center not only of the children's life, but the moral pole of the small
Maycomb community. He teaches Scout several difficult lessons, the most important one being
that of acquiring the power to surpass and accept other's choices, opinions and even wickedness
with a temperate eye.

Bibliography:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Kill_a_Mockingbird#1962_film
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Set_a_Watchman
3. www.cliffnotes.com

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