Transcript To Kill a Mockingbird Background Notes

 (Nelle) Harper Lee, born in
Monroeville, Alabama in 1926,
has only this one novel to her
credit, but it has been enough to
earn her a Pulitzer Prize and a
wide audience.
 The character Atticus is
apparently based on Lee’s father,
who practiced law in Monroeville.
 No doubt Lee chose the Charles
Lamb epigraph to her novel,
“Lawyers, I suppose, were children
once,” as a nod to her upbringing.
Author
To Kill a Mockingbird is
divided into two parts.
Part I deals with the
children’s efforts to lure
Boo Radley, the
neighborhood recluse, into
the light of day.
The events of Part II center
on the trial of Tom
Robinson for the rape of a
white woman.
Structure
In the early 1930’s, the
small town of Maycomb,
Alabama, shows the
effects of the Great
Depression: the general
hard times require that
the community draw on its
values of compassion,
generosity, and
endurance.
The Southern caste
structures ensure that
these values will come
into conflict with deepseated prejudices.
Setting and
Atmosphere
Scout tells the story of
herself as she ages from
six to eight in order to
understand it for the first
time.
 A six-year-old narrator
does not tell the story.
Rather, the narrator is
trying to record her
world as it appeared to
her when she was six
years old.
Point of View
It is a novel of personal
development; it focuses on
the growth and education
of the young narrator,
Scout Finch.
As Scout extends first her
physical boundaries and
later her emotional and
moral boundaries, she
learns the place of fear and
courage in the adult world,
the value of family and
tradition, and the power of
prejudice and social
hypocrisy.
Characters
Jem also develops-but in a
quieter, more reflective
manner than Scout. We see
and admire his development
through Scout’s eyes, as he
learns about adult secrecy,
about being a gentleman,
and about the varieties of
courage that surround him.
Characters
Atticus presides over all
events in his rational
version of wisdom,
allowing the children their
lessons as he fights his
Characters
own losing battles in the
public eye and serves both
as Maycomb’s scapegoat
and as its symbol of
justice.
 Three major themes are represented
in these materials:
 Growing up- the children in To Kill A
Mockingbird pass from innocence and
isolation to the beginnings of their
participation in a flawed society. In
following this theme, we watch the
process by which Scout and Jem
develop an intellectual integrity and
emotional maturity.
Theme
Prejudice- Class, racial,
and sexual prejudices as
deeply ingrained aspects of
society are identified and
discussed extensively.
Courage- To Kill A
Mockingbird follows a
gradual extension of the
meaning of courage from
physical courage to moral
courage.
Theme
Major motifs in To Kill A
Mockingbird include:
the mockingbird,
boundaries, education,
point of view, battles and
weapons, secrets and
hypocrisies, superstitions
and scare-stories and “when
to worry.”
Motifs
(reoccurring images
or ideas)
The most apparent
techniques Lee employs
are an episodic plot
structure, a dry humor,
and a pattern of repetition
that allows themes to
emerge and to be
reinforced.
Style
 The critical comments in the front
pages of To Kill A Mockingbird
reveal that reception of the novel
in 1960 was enthusiastic.
 Although accused by a few
critics of inconsistency of
narrator-voice, melodrama in the
climax, or writing for Hollywood,
most critics praised Lee’s simple,
strong storytelling, authentic
characters and dialogue, attack
on important social issues, and
humor.
The Critics’
View
To Kill A
Mockingbird
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