Harper Lee 

Brief plot overview 

How To Kill a Mockingbird

In Maycomb, Alabama, Scout and Jem Finch start out as innocent youngsters who play, attend school and attempt to communicate with their reclusive neighbor, Boo Radley. Their lawyer father, a peace lover and gentleman, Atticus finds himself in the midst of fierce social turmoil as he defends a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. The entire town becomes swept up in the trial. Scout and Jem learn hard lessons about social inequity, personal restraint and compassion. When Boo Radley ultimately saves the children’s lives, it solidifies their resolve to care for the “mockingbirds” in their society.

Characters you found interesting and why? 

A character I found interesting was Boo Radley, the neighbor of the finch family. Boo’s defining characteristic is his literal and symbolic invisibility. A recluse who only comes out at night, Boo becomes a receptacle for the town’s fears and superstitions. The Finch children make up strange and horrific stories about Boo, informed by the gossip of the adults. The reader understands that Boo has been mistreated by his father, who locked him up for a minor infraction when he was a young man, but Jem and Scout believe wild tales about Boo, such as the rumor that he kills the neighbors’ pets. As such, within the context of the novel Boo functions more like a ghost than an actual character. He only appears in the final chapters of the book, and even then, only speaks once, but his presence is felt throughout. In fact. Symbolically, Boo represents both Scout’s childish understanding of the lives of people around her, and also the risks that face children as they grow up in the world. Boo also symbolizes aspects of the town’s past, such as intolerance, inequality, and slavery. Boo doesn’t change as a character over the course of the novel, but Scout and Jem’s perception of Boo changes from monster to hero as he saves the finch children near the end of the text. Boo is genuinely kind and protective of the children. In fact, he protects them when Atticus has underestimated the threat that Bob Ewell poses to Atticus and his family. “Will you take me home?”. These are the only words spoken by Boo in the whole novel. Boo is someone who wants to spend his life with in the protective walls of his home but has ventured out because of a desire to protect the Finch children.

Messages you took from the text and why?

Messages I took from the text were inequality and prejudice. Conflicts over racism drive some of the most compelling and memorable scenes in the novel. Racial conflict causes the two dramatic deaths that occur in the story. This book represents a simplistic and moralistic view of racial prejudice. White people who are racist are bad, and white people who are not racist are good. Atticus risks his reputation, his position in the community, and ultimately the safety of his children because he is not racist, and therefore good. Bob Ewell falsely accuses a black man of rape, spits on Atticus publicly, and attempts to murder a child because he is racist, and therefore bad. To Kill a Mockingbird does attempt to look at some of the complexities of living in a racist society. Both Scout and Jem confront everything from unpleasantness to murderous hostility as they learn how their family’s resistance to racial prejudice has positioned them against the community at large. Black characters in the novel never respond to racism actively and barely respond to it reactively. When a black character is critical of white people, as when Lula challenges Calpurnia for bringing Jem and Scout to the black church, she is ostracized by the rest of the black community, suggesting her complaints against white people are unfounded. This gives me the message of the past and the prejudice and inequality of everyone and how it creates an affect on their lives. 

Challenges that characters had to deal with?

Atticus Finch faces many challenges throughout the text attempting to defend Tom Robinson, a black man wrongfully accused of raping a white woman. Atticus faces problems such as his neighbours and the townspeople. when the mob comes to the jailhouse, Atticus faces them with courage as he sits before the door under the light. Also, when the men come to the front yard, it is a brave Atticus who defends Tom’s right to an equitable trial. Confronted with Bob Ewell’s insults before the courthouse, Atticus again conducts himself as a true gentleman of integrity.  He does not stoop to Ewell’s level of insults, but merely wipes the spit from his face and walks on. “Jem, see if you can stand in Bob Ewell’s shoes a minute. I destroyed his last shred of credibility at that trial, if he had any to begin with. The man had to have some kind of comeback, his kind always does. So if spitting in my face and threatening me saved Mayella Ewell one extra beating, that’s something I’ll gladly take”. In this quote, Atticus says he would rather Bob Ewell focus his rage on Atticus than on one of Bob’s children. This shows Atticus faces all his social conflicts with equanimity and conviction in the principles in which he believes. He is a well known man within the town and continues to take on any challenges that step in his way during the text. From my own experiences I have never been in a situation similar to Atticus because nowadays we do not live in such a prejudice place but it has still not been fully fixed. 

Discuss about the title of the text and how it is appropriate. 

The title of the To Kill a Mockingbird is to destroy innocence. Throughout the book, a number of characters such as Jem, Tom Robinson and Boo Radley can be identified as mockingbirds who are innocents who have been injured or destroyed through contact with evil. Mockingbirds are not the only birds in the book. Finch, the last name of Scout, Jem, and Atticus, is a small bird. This is why the title of the text is appropriate because it relates to many characters in the text. 

Who would you recommend this story to and why?

I would recommend this story to students 14 year olds and up. This is because it is a great book demonstrates the struggles of prejudice, inequality, of a small town with many characters showing different viewpoints. From reading this myself, I highly recommend this book.