Refections - To Kill a Mockingbird

This is one of the few books about the South written by a Southerner that I think people from all over the United States (and many parts of the world) can fully understand. One of the reasons is that the hardships are not localised; they are universals. 

Even amid the bigotry in the story, no one is playing the blame game. Things are bad, but it's not because of the Yankees; or the rich whites; or "the system." Things are bad because the whole nation is in a Depression.

I think that To Kill a Mockingbird is possibly the greatest American novel, and this is because it's the greatest novel about America and warts-and-all Americans. 

Before critics, professors and teachers start exclaiming, "What about The Scarlet Letter?' 'What about Moby Dick?", let me say that I am willing to revise that statement by adding "of the 20th century." But I don't think it makes much difference.

The first thing To Kill a Mockingbird has in its favor is that it is readable. My students kept turning Harper Lee's pages long after they'd ground to a halt - or needed real help - with other "great" novels. I never taught a class that didn't like To Kill a Mockingbird.

I think this is due to the fact that it is so believable. We all knew people like those in the book when we were growing up. The cranky Mrs Duboise, the spinster Miss Maudie, and the mysterious Radleys. The level of fear, excitement and violence in the book is about what normal people experience, growing up in small towns. We can imagine how that shooting a rabid dog would be the talk among children for months and years. Tom Robinson's rape trial is that once-a-decade event that becomes a landmark in people's lives.

To me, however, the real strength of To Kill a Mockingbird is that encapsulates American ideals of fairness, justice and caring. Of making the best of difficult conditions, of trying very hard to do the right thing; of keeping certain things private, but making a brave stand when confronted by gross injustice.

Yes, there's injustice, bigotry and hypocrisy in the book, just as there is in life. And, just as in life, these vices are in conflict with our better feelings and instincts. This is why the potential lynch mob that confronts Atticus is defused by Scout. Her simple, "Hey, Mr Cunningham," is enough to bring the men back to common sense. That it happens so easily demonstrates that they were never that far from it anyway.

To Kill a Mockingbird can been seen as a period, great depression, piece, but its themes are more universal than that. There are no sweeping scenes in it, either. It's a very tightly bound book, but it is never claustrophobic. So while it is not Gone with the Wind, it isn't Cat on a Hot Tin Roof either.

At the same time, it's too uncomfortable a book to be branded "folksy." It's not easy growing up in the depression without a mother. There is sentiment, but not sentimentality. The device of Scout telling the story keeps the edge sharp, and un-misted by nostalgia. Her perceptions are shrewd, but there are things she doesn't understand, so the narrative is broadly objective, rather than interpreted and analysed. The only judgements that Scout makes are those that a child would instantly make. This keeps the book fresh, avoiding self-indulgence.

Atticus is a great, quiet hero, getting about his modest business, modestly. He has some prominence in that he has been in the state legislature, and he's from a long-established area family. His strength and courage are inner, but surface in his compassion, empathy and determination that the "right" thing be done. He achieves this without self-righteousness, pomposity or bluster, and he is prepared to risk everything: he puts his life on the line during his vigil outside Tom Robinson's jail cell, and later when he thinks that Jem has killed Mr Ewell, he is willing for him to pay the consequences.

That Atticus is respected comes out in quiet ways, too. Miss Maudie is the most vocal of his supporters, but Mrs Duboise is one, too. Likewise, the sheriff shows enormous respect for Atticus, and even the newspaper editor is looking after him outside the courthouse.

The world in To Kill a Mockingbird isn't the world as it should be, but it is very close to the world as it is at its best.