To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
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Book Reviews of To Kill a Mockingbird
Book Review: Prejudice
Summary: 5 Stars
To Kill a Mockingbird contains criticism of the prejudice and moral laziness that allowed Southern society to have a double standard of justice. The novel also presents a somewhat optimistic view of white Southerners that was somewhat unusual at the time the novel appeared. The story indicates there are good human beings like Atticus Finch everywhere, even in the midst of a corrupt society. Even those who do wrong, the novel goes on to suggest, often act out of ignorance and weakness rather than a deliberate impulse to hurt others.Another theme of the novel is the transition from innocence to experience. At the beginning of the story Scout's world is limited to the boundaries of her immediate neighborhood. She feels safe and secure, and totally confident that the way things are done in her home is not just the right way, but the only way. The arrival of Dill, who comes from a broken home and has lived in another state, gives Scout her first hint of a variety of experiences beyond her narrow horizons. Then, on her first day of school, she begins to discover that not everyone agrees that the way things are done in Maycomb, Alabama, is necessarily correct. She also learns that sometimes it is necessary to compromise in order to get along. Even though Scout's teacher's ideas about how to teach reading may be wrong, Scout must respect the teacher's authority. Her own father advises her to ignore the teacher's ban on reading at home, but to pretend to go along with the teacher's methods while in the classroom. This kind of social hypocrisy is new to Scout, and she is surprised to hear her very moral father advocating it.
Related to the theme of innocence and experience is the novel's suggestion that innocent children can often see large moral issues more clearly than adults. Scout, Jem, and Dill never waver in their horror at the injustice done to Tom Robinson. The adults in the story, however, see all the complexities of the situation to the point of being blinded to the central issue of right and wrong. However much Scout may grow through her exposure to new experiences, one hopes that she will never lose her childlike undertaking of justice. In the view of this novel's author, justice is a simple concept. To recognize the difference between justice and injustice does not take any special degree of wisdom or sophistication. In fact, the learned members of the community--such as the judge and prosecutor--and the proudly religious Baptists who are spectators at the trial are, willingly or not, allied with the machinery of injustice.
Book Review: A powerful, inspiring, and classic novel
Summary: 5 Stars
Haper Lee's novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird," is a world known classic. It is an interesting and touching story about two kids growing up in Maycomb, Alabama during the great depression in the 1930's. It was a time with racism and discrimination. The whole town turns on Atticus Finch, the father of Scout and Jem, because he was the attorney for a black man named Tom Robinson. Tom was accused of raping a young white girl, because he is black. Even though he was innocent, no one in the town believed him but Atticus.
The story is told through the eyes of Scout Finch, a six-year-old tomboy who was dragged into this racial battle with her father and brother. Her and her brother Jem became friends with Dill. Dill lived with his aunt in Maycomb over the summer and they became very mischievous and discovered their neighbor who hasn't been seen outside of his house since he got in trouble with the law at a young age. His name is Arthur Radley, or more known as Boo Radley, and the children became fascinated with him. They tell scary and mysterious stories about Boo. Their main goal is to get a peek at Boo, but then they started communicating with him by notes and objects left in an old tree.
The trail brings out the towns ugly side, but Lee also has many offsets, like the elderly lady that tried to overcome her morphine problem before she died. Or, Scouts understanding that most people are kind when you really get to know them. This understanding is what is truly amazing about this book. Her thoughts are very clear throughout the book and she makes you feel the things that she feels. This book makes you feel like your living in Maycomb, Alabama during the 1930's. She often went on about the characters appearance, and even smell to make it seem like they are standing right in front of you.
The story is based on Scout learning to be empathetic. Atticus explains to Scout how she needs to get into other peoples skin if she wants to understand the way they live or feel about something. Atticus's words are very heartfelt throughout the whole story. He is an unforgettable character, and impressed me many times while reading the book. He is a great father, and he stood up for what he believed in, even though the whole town was against him. He never gave up through the hard times that he was having with not only the trial.
It is a very rough and soft story about class, justice, race, and growing up. This book will get you thinking and your heart pounding. I would highly recommend this inspiring, powerful, and classic novel to anyone.
Book Review: One of the Greatest
Summary: 5 Stars
The youngest of four children, Harper Lee was born in 1926 in Alabama. She won the Pulitzer Prize with "To Kill a Mockingbird" - her only novel - which was first published in 1960.
The story is set in 1930s Maycomb, Alabama, and is told by Scout Finch. In it, she looks back to her childhood, between the ages of six and nine years. A lively, intelligent and fiercely loyal child, she has one older brother called Jem, whose main interest is football. Despite an age difference of nearly four years, the siblings are clearly very close. Their mother died when Scout was two and they have been brought up by their father, Atticus - who proves to be a man you can't help admiring. Calpurnia, their housekeeper, seems to have been a great help to Atticus in raising the children. At times, Scout seems to have seen her as something of an adversary, though they become much closer as time goes on. Among their neighbours are the mysterious Radleys - Mr. Arthur, better known as Boo Radley, hasn't been seen outside for many years. He has become something of a legend that inspires a certain amount of fear among the children. Another neighbour, Miss Maudie, is an entirely different proposition - a very likeable character, she proves to be a very good friend to the children and one of Maycomb's more admirable residents.
Another of the children's friends in Chet Baker Harris, a boy from Mississippi who is better known as Dill. He spends his summer with his Aunt Rachel, another of Scout's neighbours. Dill is the driving force behind one of the book's major themes : the quest to make Boo Radley come outside. The other theme, however, is a lot more serious - it deals with a court case where a black man has been charged with raping a white woman, on very flimsy evidence. The attitude of many of the townsfolk to the man in question, and to the black community in general, confuse the children greatly. The consequences of these attitudes have a direct impact on the Finch family, given that Atticus has been appointed the defence attorney.
I tend to be very suspicious of a book if it's referred to as a 'classic' - too many of those I've read (or been forced to read) have been far too tedious. "To Kill a Mockingbird", however, is what a classic should be - superbly written, with an excellent story and featuring characters you genuinely care about. Its screen adaptation is also widely regarded as a classic, leading to an Oscar for Gregory Peck, who played Atticus. Neither the book, nor the film, should be missed.
Book Review: A replica of life
Summary: 5 Stars
To Kill A Mockingbird is about a young girl, who is named Jean-Louise, nicknamed Scout, that grows up in a small, dilapidated town where racial prejudice and hatred are in the extreme. The setting revolves around Maycomb, a sluggish-moving town where snow seems a mere fantasy. Maycomb presents seemingly uninhabited mansions and two colliding worlds of races that create an air of suspense and integrity. Maycomb is the perfect setting where the characters get entwined into the rushing whirlpool of schemes and intrigues. Scout, her big brother Jem, and their close friend Dill, encounter the wrath of Mrs. Dubose, become mystified by the eccentricity of the Radley Place, and witness the injustice of racial discrimination. To Kill A Mockingbird provides a picture of man's inhumanity to man and the effect it has upon the innocence of mind. The main character, Scout, values frankness and openness. On the playground, she would never walk away from a fight. Scout maintains a high-spirited independence, but she represents a dynamic character. Being a young child, Scout is as gullible as a dandelion in the wind. She turns whatever way others are thinking and is easily guided. Scout radiates the image of being a tomboy from the manner of expressing herself to the overalls that she wears under her dress. Characterization is developed indirectly by characters' qualities by showing their personality and the way they carry themselves during troubles. One of my favorite characters is Boo Radley, whom all the children try to persuade to come out of his house. Boo Radley represents our darkest fears. Maycomb radiates with injustice and the sufferings of the less appreciated race. These evils tear everyone apart so that they want to hide in hopes that the problems will diminish. Boo Radley symbolizes that the Maycomb society knows about the racial injustice against Negroes, but is too afraid of change to fix their beliefs.The author's style in To Kill A Mockingbird is conversational and simple. The word choice enables you to leave the world of high literacy and reach a place where actions are not expressed in high, intricate words, but in commonplace English. Plain words give a feeling of real heart-to-heart situations while words that are sophisticated resemble an idea that is multifaceted and so complex that knowing the true meaning would be a presumption. To Kill A Mockingbird is a thoroughly woven tale without too much simplicity; a replica of the ways of life.
Book Review: A Parody of our intolerant behavior
Summary: 5 Stars
To Kill A Mockingbird is told in the first person by a six-year-old girl with the prose style of a well-educated adult. The book's setting is a small town in Alabama, and the action behind Scout's tale is her father's determination, as a lawyer, liberal, and honest man, to defend a Negro accused of raping a white girl. The most important theme of To Kill a Mockingbird is the book's exploration of the moral nature of human beings-that is, whether people are essentially good or essentially evil. The novel approaches this question by dramatizing Scout's and Jem's transition from a perspective of childhood innocence, in which they assume that people are good because they have never seen evil, to a more adult perspective, in which they have confronted evil and must incorporate it into their understanding of the world. As a result of this portrayal of the transition from innocence to experience, one of the book's important subthemes involves the threat that hatred, prejudice, and ignorance pose to the innocent: people such as Tom Robinson and Boo Radley are not prepared for the evil that they encounter, and, as a result, they are destroyed. Even Jem is victimized to an extent by his discovery of the evil of racism during and after the trial. Whereas Scout is able to maintain her basic faith in human nature despite Tom's conviction, Jem's faith in justice and in humanity is badly damaged, and he retreats into a state of disillusionment.The moral voice of To Kill a Mockingbird is Atticus Finch, who has experienced and understood evil without losing his faith in the human capacity for goodness. Atticus understands that, rather than being simply creatures of good or creatures of evil, most people have both good and bad qualities. The important thing is to appreciate the good qualities and understand the bad qualities by treating others with sympathy and trying to see life from their perspective. He tries to teach this ultimate moral lesson to Jem and Scout to show them that it is possible to live with conscience without losing hope or becoming cynical. In this way, Atticus is able to admire Mrs. Dubose's courage even while deploring her racism. Scout's progress as a character in the novel is defined by her gradual development toward understanding Atticus's lessons. There is a maturity in Scouts observation as she finds contradiction in Mrs. Faust's intolerable racist manners towards blacks, but utmost compassion towards Jews massacre by Hitler.