Review of To kill a mocking bird by Harper Lee, 1960.
Claudia Marangon 4A PNI
The novel To kill a mockingbird by Harper is set during the Great Depression of the United States in Maycomb, Alabama and narrates the events of 3 years. The whole novel is about the childhood of Scout Finch, a little girl who is also the narrator of the story. Scout lives with her father Atticus, who is a lawyer, and her brother Jem, who is 2 years older than her. Scout and Jem grow up in a very racist place, where black people are segregated and kept away from white people, but their father Atticus raises them with values and beliefs different from the ones of Maycomb folks: he has a great sense of justice and thinks that everybody has the same rights. Scout and Jem are taught by their father to respect everybody and to protect weak people like Boo Radley, a harmless man feared by everybody just because no one has ever seen him, or Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white girl called Mayella Ewell.
In this novel Atticus Finch is a character who embodies a positive model of tolerance and respect. This is shown through his behaviour during the trial, as well as the behaviour of his children and the ending.
Atticus is asked to defend Tom Robinson by judge Taylor because he is the only one who can help that man. Even though he is actually innocent, nobody, except for Atticus, believes him because he is a black man against a white one. Maycomb is indeed a town where racism reigns and only a few people are respectful to everybody else. Atticus is not just one of them, and he i has to fight to defend his ideas, which are reported by Tom Robinson during the trial. Harper Lee describes him as a very polite and intelligent man and through some facts she makes the reader understand that Atticus is the positive model in the novel. His behaviour during and after the trial shows that Atticus never gives up. Even though he knows that nothing can be done for Tom he keeps fighting for his values. Even when Bob Ewell, Mayella’s father, threatens him and spits in his face, Atticus does not get angry about that and says: “if spitting in my face and threatening me saved Mayella Ewell one extra beating that’s something I’d gladly take.” Atticus, who has never thought about getting his revenge on Bob Ewell, looks at him with pity, never with anger.
Scout and Jem’s behaviour is another evidence that Harper Lee thinks about Atticus as a model of tolerance. They are different from the other children in Maycomb, who tend to be racist like Cecil Jacobs, one of Scout’s friends, who does not hesitate calling Atticus a “nigger-lover” as soon as he sees Scout: they do not care about racial differences, they are friendly with black people, and they have no problem in talking to them or even in going to their church. They cannot understand why Maycomb folks are racist. Their feelings about racism are well shown during the trial, especially by Jem: when they arrive home after the verdict Jem starts crying and keeps repeating that what the jury decided is not fair. Both children grow a lot during the novel, thanks to their father they learn to respect everybody, even people who look scary like Boo Radley.
Harper Lee stresses her opinion about Atticus’ ideas and values in her last pages: Bob Ewell is the personification of racism, and his death, after he tries to harm Jem and Scout as a revenge against Atticus will not bring anything but pain.
At the very end of the novel, when Atticus and Scout are together on their porch, Scout shows that she really understood Atticus’ s teachings and that she is now a more mature person: she shows that she understood what her father meant when he said “It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird”.
