DR.RAM MANOHAR LOHIYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, LUCKNOW.

(SESSION 2021-2022)

BOOK REVIEW

OF

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY:

DR. ALKA SINGH SYED YASIR MAHMOOD

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR ENROLLMENT NUMBER: 210101152

(ENGLISH) 1st Semester Section – B

B.A. LL.B (Hons.)

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT………………………………….. 3

DECLARATION…………………………………………. 4

INTRODUCTION…………………………………………5

ABOUT THE AUTHOR…………………………………...6

DETAILED PLOT…………………………………………7

THEMES…………………………………………………...9

REVIEW AND ANALYSIS………………………………11

CRITICISM…………………………………………..........12

PUBLIC PERCEPTION AND ACCLAIIM……………….13

CONCLUSION………………………………………….....14

BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………............ 15
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I am most profoundly grateful to my teacher Dr. Alka Singh for providing me this wonderful
opportunity to work upon this topic, after doing which I feel to have enlightened myself in this
regard and for the precious time they spent guiding us for the completion of this project.

Last but not least I would also like to thank my parents and friends. It was only because of their
excellent help that I have been able to complete my project.

SYED YASIR MAHMOOD

 DECLARATION
I hereby declare that this work submitted by me to Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya National Law
University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh in partial fulfilment of the degree of B.A. LL.B. (Hons.)
and is a record of bonafide project work carried out by me under the guidance of Dr. Alka
Singh.

I further declare that the work reported in this project has not been submitted, and will not be
submitted either in part or in full, for the award of any other degree or diploma in this institute
or any other university.
 INTRODUCTION

To Kill a Mockingbird, a modern classic by Harper Lee, is a coming -of-age narrative

with a theme of social equality and prejudice. Racist Southern culture, which is
firmly ingrained in violence and hate, is one of the topics. Many of us are aware that
the message of this 1960 novel is still applicable in today's society. A work with a
socially significant issue and a lovely tale that incorporates a rural setting and young
characters is the ideal combo.

The most intriguing part of this tale is that it is told entirely through the eyes of a
youngster. However, the viewpoint of an eight-year-old kid on the tale has little
bearing on the novel's important issues. The twists and turns in Scout and Jem's lives,
their upbringing, ordinary childhood days, and so on are all fascinating. People's
racial discrimination is connected with their lives through their father, Atticus Finch,
a lawyer, who takes up a case for Tom Robinson, a Negro. This has an impact on
their life. Scout, with her tenacity and astute attitude, quickly becomes a fan
favourite.
 ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nelle Harper Lee (April 28, 1926 – February 19, 2016) was an American author best known
for To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960. It earned the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and has
since become a modern American literary masterpiece. Lee has earned various honorary
degrees and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 for her
contributions to writing. Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville,
Alabama, to Frances Cunningham (née Finch) and Amasa Coleman Lee, the youngest of four
children. Her parents gave her the middle name Harper in honour of Selma paediatrician Dr.
William W. Harper, who saved her sister Louise's life. Nelle was her grandmother's name
spelt backwards, and it was the name she went by, with Harper Lee being her pen name.
Lee's mother was a housewife, and her father, a former newspaper editor, merchant, and
lawyer who served in the Alabama State Legislature from 1926 to 1938, was also a
homemaker. She was a cousin of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and a member of the
prestigious Lee family through her father. A.C. Lee previously represented two black men
accused of killing a white storekeeper before becoming a title lawyer. Both of the clients
were hung, a father and a son. This turning point in her life would lead to the creation of one
of English literature's everlasting masterpieces.
 DETAILED PLOT
To Kill a Mockingbird is essentially a story about growing up in the 1930s in the Southern
United States under unusual circumstances. The narrative spans three years, during which the
major protagonists go through dramatic transformations. Scout Finch lives in the fictional
town of Maycomb, Alabama, with her brother Jem and their father Atticus. Maycomb is a
tiny, close-knit community, and each family has its own social station based on where they
reside, who their parents are, and how long their ancestors have been in the town.

Atticus, a widower, raises his children on his own with the aid of a black servant called
Calpurnia and a few compassionate neighbours. Scout and Jem have an almost instinctual
understanding of their neighbourhood and town's complexity and intrigues. The only
neighbour that perplexes them is Arthur Radley, also known as Boo, who never comes out.
When another neighbor's nephew, Dill, begins spending summers in Maycomb, the three kids
embark on an eager — and often deadly — quest to get Boo outside.

Scout is a tomboy who loves to hanging out with boys and resolves her conflicts with her
fists. She attempts to make sense of a world that expects her to act ladylike, a brother who
condemns her for acting like a girl, and a father who embraces her for who she is. Scout
despises school and prefers to learn from her father and on her own neighbourhood

Scout and Jem learn of their father's plans to represent a black guy called Tom Robinson who
is accused of raping and beating a white lady not long after the narrative begins. Scout and
Jem are suddenly subjected to a flood of racist slurs and insults as a result of Atticus'
participation in the trial. Scout has a hard time resisting the urge to physically fight with the
other children at this period, a habit that lands her in problems with her Aunt Alexandra and
Uncle Jack. Even Jem, the more mature and level-headed of the two, loses his cool from time
to time. Jem is condemned to read to Mrs. Dubose every day after ruining her plants in
response to a verbal assault by a neighbour (Mrs. Dubose). For the next month, Jem is
required to read to her every day after school. Scout and Jem eventually learn a valuable
lesson about bravery from this lady. As the trial approaches, Aunt Alexandra moves in with
them under the pretence of providing Scout with a feminine presence.
Tom is tried and found guilty during the last summer of the novel, despite the fact that
Atticus establishes that Tom could not have done the crime for which he is charged. Atticus
unwittingly upsets and offends Bob Ewell, a rude, sluggish drinker whose daughter is Tom's
accuser, while presenting Tom's case. Despite Tom's conviction, Ewell swears vengeance on
Atticus and the judge for tarnishing his already ruined reputation. The jury's decision to
convict perplexes all three children; Atticus goes on to explain why the jury's decision was in
many ways a foregone conclusion.

Scout attends one of her aunt's Missionary Society sessions shortly after the trial. Atticus
interrupts the conference to announce that Tom Robinson was slain while attempting to flee
the country. Scout learns important lessons that day about reaching the ideal of femininity
and persevering in the face of hardship.

Scout and Jem realise that Boo Radley is no longer an all-consuming curiosity as things
slowly return to normal in Maycomb. The storey appears to be coming to a close when Bob
Ewell begins to carry out his threats of vengeance. Scout is performing as a ham in the
school's Halloween pageant. Jem volunteers to drive Scout to school because Atticus and
Aunt Alexandra are both too weary to go. Scout decides to keep her ham costume on for the
trip home with Jem after humiliating herself on stage.

The kids hear strange noises on their walk home, but they tell themselves that it's from
another buddy who terrified them on their way to school that evening. Suddenly, there is a
scuffle. Scout is unable to see outside of her costume, but she hears Jem being pulled aside
and feels muscular arms pushing the chicken wire of her costume against her flesh. Jem's arm
gets brutally broken during this attack. Scout catches a sight of a stranger taking Jem back to
their house through the gap in her costume.

The sheriff comes at the Finch residence to inform them that Bob Ewell has been discovered
dead beneath the tree where the children were assaulted, having been stabbed with his own
knife. Scout recognises by this point that the stranger is none other than Boo Radley, and that
Boo is the one who killed Ewell, sparing her and Jem's lives. Despite Atticus' protests, the
sheriff declines to bring charges against Boo. Scout agrees with this idea and informs her
father of her thoughts. Boo sees Jem one more time before asking Scout to accompany him
home, but instead of escorting him like a kid, she has Boo escort her to his house as a
gentleman would
 THEMES

The conflict between Good and Evil

The fight between good and evil is one of To Kill a Mockingbird's most fundamental themes.
The author explores the concept of good and evil by focusing on Jem and Scout's
development from childhood to adulthood. They believe that people are decent because they
are unaware of human nature's dark side. Their perspective is altered, however, as they find
that once unleashed, evil refuses to be contained. People like Boo Radley and Tom Robinson
are destroyed and emotionally killed as a result of this. As a result, the novel's central topic is
the fight between good and evil, with Atticus acknowledging that even horrible people may
be good.
Prejudice
Prejudice is another broad but implicit thematic element. Maycomb's harsh and cruel
discriminatory system wrecks people's lives. Tom Robinson, the most visible victim of
prejudice, has been found guilty of falsely accusing a white lady of rape. Prejudice has also
affected Tom's accuser. The rest of the village regards her entire family as immoral. When
Aunt Alexandra advises that Atticus fire Calpurnia and educate youngsters the significance of
class, Scout and Jem see discrimination.

Moral complexity
Moral ambiguity is another key issue that goes throughout the work. Jem and Scout discover
that there is no yardstick that can measure good and evil in humans. They believe that
humans are emblems of purity and morality at start. Their sense of humanity is challenged by
Jem's trial. When the enraged mob attempts to attack Atticus, they see how people can
change in a heartbeat and even turn against someone they once admired. However, Atticus
and his children treat people with love and care, thus preparing them to face evil without
losing heart.

Innocence
In the novel, the topic of innocence is very prominent. Scout and Jem are the epitome of
innocence. When their father decides to support a black guy, their innocence is put to the test.
They learn that people are assessed by the colour of their skin rather than their merits or
moral standards. In the form of racial injustice and skewed societal morality, they are
confronted with the loss of innocence. They become more susceptible and empathetic to
society as a result of their loss of innocence. Tom's honesty is likewise mocked by society's
unfair system. People's naivety matures to the level of mature and responsible thinking at the
end of the storey.

Racism
The novel's backbone is based on the issue of racism. Calpurnia, Scout, Tom Robinson, and
his family, among others, face racial persecution in To Kill a Mockingbird. Scout investigates
the distinctions between white and black people throughout the narrative. Tom gets
condemned solely on the basis of his skin colour. The only substantial evidence against him
is his race. Because everything has happened through the lens of prejudice, racism may be
considered a major thematic strand.

Knowledge

As their characters evolve in the novel via numerous events, Jem and Scout go from naivety
to wisdom. They come to recognise their own link with the outside world, as well as one
man's valour in the face of communal bias. They initially assess the people via the prism of
their restricted social perspective. When they are confronted with the harsh facts of life, their
perception of the people alters radically. Their interactions with the public have led them to
believe that monster Boo Radley is a pure soul. This opens up a world of possibilities for
them.

The Existence of Social Inequality

Maycomb's complicated social hierarchy investigates the disparities in people's social

position. Rich Finches are at the pinnacle of the social structure, while the Cunninghams are
at the bottom, and the Ewells and other groups are in the centre. This societal inequity has
ramifications not just for the judicial system but also for public conduct. As a result, it is a
major subject throughout the storey.
 REVIEW AND ANALYSIS
Throughout both sections of To Kill a Mockingbird Lee skillfully shows other divisions
among people and how these barriers are threatened. Obviously, it is not a matter of race
alone that sets societal patterns in their provincial Alabama town. For example, when
Atticus’s sister, Alexandria, visits the family, she makes it clear that she is displeased by
Scout’s tomboyish appearance, since she feels a future “southern belle” should be interested
in more ladylike clothing and more feminine behavior. Furthermore, as Jem tells Scout later,
there is a strict caste system in Maycomb, with each group threatened by any possible
abridgements of the social order. As Jem suggests, there are the “old” families—the gentry,
who are usually educated, frequently professional, but, given the era, often cash-poor. On the
next level down are the “poor but proud” people, such as the Cunninghams. They are country
folk who pay their bills with crops and adamantly refuse all charity. Beneath them is the
group commonly called “poor white trash,” amply represented by Bob Ewell, “the only man
ever fired by the WPA for laziness,” and his pitiful daughter Mayella, the supposed victim of
the rape. At the lowest rung of the social ladder are African Americans, although many are
clearly superior to some of the poor white trash, who have only their skin color as their badge
of superiority. They are represented by Tom Robinson, the accused rapist, and Calpurnia, the
housekeeper for the motherless Finch family.

In the novel, Lee employs a variety of symbols, none more prominent than the titular
character, the mockingbird. The bird is shown as an innocent singer that simply exists to
bring joy to others. When Atticus offers Jem and Scout air guns early in the novel, he makes
it plain that harming a mockingbird is a sin, a notion repeated by Miss Maudie. Boo Radley
and Tom Robinson, both innocents "caged for crimes they never committed," are discreetly
associated with the birds, while Atticus is a sign of conscience. He is a nonconformist, an
uncommon southerner, a contemplative, bookish man at odds with his surroundings, unlike
his sister. He often reminds his kids that the best way to comprehend other people is to walk
in their shoes. "The one thing that does not abide by majority rule is a person's conscience,"
he says, noting that he is aware of popular opinion. Atticus is the symbol of the future, of the
“new” South that will arise when it takes into account all human experience, discarding the
old romantic notions of an isolated regionalism in favour of a wider Emersonian view of the
world
 CRITICISM
The book has been heavily criticised for it revolving around the superfluous mental dilemmas
and distresses of Atticus Finch and his family, a well off white one instead of truly
empathising with the actual struggles of the underprivileged black community. The book has
been criticised for being myopic in nature of its protagonists’ perspectives being of the silent
observers and thus enablers of the crude racial system. Scout's white lawyer ultimately
emerges as the story's hero, the protagonist of a storey that essentially ignores the Black guy,
who is wrongfully imprisoned as a result of another white man's wrongdoing. Instead of
Robinson's predicaments, the persistent danger to his life, and the trial's seeming unfairness,
what comes over painfully in the novel is Finch's defence of the innocent Black man, which
makes him a saviour against the south's discriminating tendencies.

On the other hand, Finch, a character based on Lee's father Amasa Coleman Lee, has been
repeatedly knocked off his pedestal for refusing to reveal the true identity of Ewell's rapist,
for routinely participating in the segregation that pervades his town, and for taking on
Robinson's case only after the court appointed him a lawyer.

Furthermore, the novel has been criticised for being too insensitive, given that it was written
by the 'privileged' daughter of a ‘respectable' lawyer in the Old South, and questions have
been raised as to why it should be included in the school curriculum when students could be
exposed to other literary voices on race and injustice that have emerged over the decades.
According to a piece in The New Yorker, author Alice Randall said that Lee's narrative may
be as frightening for a Black youngster in Mississippi who encounters first-hand the horrors
of racism and fears being wrongly charged and tried like Robinson one day.

To Kill a Mockingbird has been named to the 2020 list of the most challenged works of the
previous decade, as a result of the racist discussion, as well as recent occurrences of police
violence and misbehaviour. It was placed 15th on the list, with classics such as Mark Twain's
Huckleberry Finn and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, which were ranked 33rd and 10th,
respectively.
 PUBLIC RECEPTION AND CRITICAL ACCLAIM
Despite her editors' predictions that the book would fail to sell well, it rapidly became a
phenomenon, gaining Lee accolades in literary circles, her hometown of Monroeville, and
throughout Alabama. The book went through several printings and became widely available
as a result of its inclusion in the Book of the Month Club and Reader's Digest Condensed
Books editions.

The novel elicited a wide range of responses at first. The New Yorker called Lee "a talented,
unassuming, and absolutely ingenious writer," while The Atlantic Monthly called the book
"pleasant, undemanding reading," but found the narrative voice implausible—"a six-year-old
child with the literary style of a well-educated adult." Scout Finch is "the most charming kid
since Carson McCullers' Frankie got left behind at the wedding," according to a 1960 Time
magazine review, and "teaches the reader an incredible number of essential truths about little
girls and about Southern life."

Not every critic was enthralled. Granville Hicks called the work "melodramatic and artificial"
because of its exploitation of impoverished white Southerners and one-dimensional black
victims. Southern author Flannery O'Connor said when the book was originally published, "I
believe it is enough for a children's book. It's fascinating that everyone who buys it has no
idea they're reading a children's book. Someone should say what it is."

To Kill a Mockingbird was translated into eleven languages one year after its release. It has
sold more than 30 million copies and been translated into more than 40 languages in the years
thereafter. In hardback or paperback, the novel has never been out of print, and it has become
a staple of the literary curriculum. The novel is the most commonly read book in these
classes, according to a 2008 study of secondary texts read by students in grades 9–12. To Kill
a Mockingbird was ranked fourth in a list of works "most commonly acknowledged as
making a difference" in a 1991 study by the Book of the Month Club and the Library of
Congress Center for the Book.
 CONCLUSION

The novel also shows the critical importance of a legal system. This theme becomes more
than necessary when it is applied selectively. The laws and codes practiced by Maycomb
citizens are complex and contradictory. Hence, they fail to provide justice to Tom, Boo
Radley and all those victims in their society. Atticus Finch’s trial also shows the frailty of this
legal system. Although Ewell has not broken any law, even some codes and their violation is
considered akin to the violation of a legal system. However, Tom’s case does not come up to
the yardstick of codes, but laws. The novel is cited as a factor in the success of the civil rights
movement in the 1960s, however, in that it "arrived at the right moment to help the South and
the nation grapple with the racial tensions (of) the accelerating civil rights movement". Its
publication is so closely associated with the Civil Rights Movement that many studies of the
book and biographies of Harper Lee include descriptions of important moments in the
movement, despite the fact that she had no direct involvement in any of them. Part of the
book's effectiveness, according to civil rights advocate Andrew Young, is that it "inspires
optimism in the middle of turmoil and uncertainty," and that it exposes the realities of the
times by employing racial epithets. Young considers the work to be a "humanitarian gesture"
in that it demonstrates the possibilities of individuals rising above their biases. To summarise,
author Harper Lee persistently analyses the moral character of human beings in To Kill a
Mockingbird, particularly the fight in every human soul between prejudice and tolerance.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Nasrullah Mambrol “Analysis of Harper Lee’s to Kill a Mockingbird” Literary Theory and
Criticism 10 June 2018 https://literariness.org/2018/06/10/analysis-of-harper-lees-to-kill-a-
mockingbird/ Accessed on 25 September 2021

"Discrimination and Prejudice To Kill a Mockingbird." UKEssays. ukessays.com, November

2018. Web. https://www.ukessays.com/essays/english-literature/discrimination-and-
prejudice-to-kill-a-mockingbird-english-literature-essay.php?vref=1 Accessed on 26
September 2021

“As Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird turns 61, a look at why the novel still attracts
criticism over its take on racism” Firstpost. Firstpost.com, 08 July 2021
https://www.firstpost.com/art-and-culture/as-harper-lees-to-kill-a-mockingbird-turns-61-a-
look-at-why-the-novel-still-attracts-criticism-over-its-take-on-racism-9787981.html
Accessed on 25 September 2021