That said…
I didn’t read the book until I was thirtysomething and I adored it for all the reasons mentioned by other posters. Plus, I am generally biased in favor of Southern Literature. But my favorite thing concerning TKAM is how Harper Lee described it: “A simple love story.”
I do not like To Kill A Mockingbird.
I do not like To Kill A Chickadee.
I do not like To Kill A Cardinal.
I do not like To Kill A Robin.
I do not like To Kill A Goldfinch.
I do not like To Kill A Blue Jay.
Starlings, I haven’t made up my mind about, yet.
(Sorry. I’ve been resisting that all day and it’s late and I can now go to bed.)
Anal Scurvy, Boo killed Bob Ewell.
The sheriff kept Boo out of things out of respect for Boo’s privacy. He realised that Boo would be seen as a hero for saving Jem and that his reclusive ways would be compromised.
Hazel: The problem was that the book wasn’t the educational experience - I was. And that was the problem. I was the only black girl in a class of 350. At 13, I was also extremely quiet and extremely shy. So, when the conversation and questions became “amarinth, was anyone in your family lynched?” “amarinth, how do you feel about that - does it make you hate all white people?” “amarinth, do all black people feel like this?” “amarinth, why didn’t blacks just move when they were in towns like that?” etc. it was intrusive and intimidating (especially seeing the teacher was among the questioners). I’m sure that some people would have loved this type of experience and the opportunity to share - I was not one of them, I’m still not - but now, I know how to remove myself from the situation… then, I didn’t. Perhaps I should look at it as a “that which does not kill me makes me stronger” situation, but I tend to see it as meanness inflicted by the public school system.
In my school, 9th grade english was required. After that, you just had to take 4 more english classes sometime in the next 3 years in order to graduate, one of them had to be American Lit - which included Huck Finn (Which I had read years earlier and never liked, but that isn’t really the point, even though I am curious as to how you could have missed the part that was about race). So, someone was always teaching it, and someone was always reading it. While it is possible that my fellow students just used the word to advance their academic pursuits, I knew them and I doubt it. Also, each time it was taught, the teacher would decide to promote discussion by talking about the lawsuits to get the book banned, so again I got to be the spokesperson for all African Americans with the “Why can’t blacks see that its a great book?” “Why do black people want to censor things?” “Do you think that those black people are right?” “You don’t mind listening to that word do you?” “Why can black people say it but we can’t?” etc. And due to the school demographics, this didn’t just happen in the class I was in, people from other classes would seek me out when they were reading it during all three years.
I was quite suprised by that book… It proved to be quite fun to read (when I thought that most literature schools made you read would never be such, save for something by Mark Twain). Easy to get through without being bored, and symphasizing with the characters was so gloriously natural the author must truly be good. Then I had to read such atrocities like the Scarlet Letter, a book that I cannot for the life of me see why someone would like. Ugh.
Peeps-what exactly IS a morphodite?
According to this:
“morphodite (n.): Scout has misheard Miss Maudie, who would actually have said the word hermaphrodite. Technically, a hermaphrodite is an animal or plant that has both female and male
reproductive organs. Of course, the children’s snowman is not really a hermaphrodite, but it does have both male and female characteristics.”
I remember that Scout called Jem a morphodite at one point as well…
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Just because you may have read things in a certain order doesn’t mean everyone else should. Hell, we read Gatsby this year in 11th grade (AP English, might I add :)). So I don’t think it makes a difference when you read a book. It’s just that an eleventh grade class will go into more depth than an eighth grade class. There’s more you understand about the world in those three years.
I don’t think there needs to be a “should”- education doesn’t have to be the same for everyone. There shouldn’t be a set course for when you have to read a book by, and what you should feel about it. It should get you to learn to think. Different people are going to get different things from a book.
Let’s not forget that Boo was Robert Duvall’s movie acting debut!
Well, I don’t want to sound like a lazy, illiterate teenager (I just read Executive Orders and Pillars of the Earth in the past month), but I hated that book. Maybe because I was forced to read it, maybe because my teacher was an insane lunatic, I don’t know. I hate books that try to teach a message, or drive home a point, or make some sociopolitical commentary - when I read a book, I read it for the plot. I know there was a lot of symbolism that many people find fascinating, but I am a very literal person. The way I saw it, the book was a tedious account of the everyday life of an annoying little child growing up in <town’s name forgotten>. The trial was interesting, yes, but it was about two chapters long. The rest was about her getting scared of Boo Radley, going to school, etc. I like reading books about something with a little more substance than that, like war, politics, technology, the rise and fall of empires, and so on. Pillars of the Earth is my favorite book of all time. Cryptonomicon runs a close second.
After reading my comment over, I realized I could sum it up in once sentence - I hate reading books where they’re only interesting because of the symbolism in them. To me, that’s the sign of a bad author. If someone can write a book that’s interesting on it’s own, and even more so when you delve into the hidden messages, etc., then that is a good author.
D’oh! I was in too much of a hurry to finish compiling KDE to re-read the last part. Follows is the updated version.
After reading my comment over, I realized I could sum it up in once sentence - I hate reading books that are only interesting because of the symbolism in them. To me, that’s the sign of a
bad author. If someone can write a book that’s interesting on it’s own, and even more so when you delve into the hidden messages, etc., then, and only then, may they be considered a good author. A Tale of Two Cities is a good example.
[bragging] My parents live in Alabama and have a friend who is a close friend of Harper Lee. Ms. Lee is constantly inundated with requests for autographed copies of TKAM, and generally gets a bunch, signs them all, and then sends them out. Thus, they don’t have personal dedications. But, through the good offices of the aforementioned friend, they were able to get me an actual autographed copy for Christmas one year. So I have a hardcover copy of TKAM, autographed to me personally by Harper Lee. It is one of my most prized possessions. [/bragging]
I loved the book. The writing is deceptively simple, but there are real depths of character, of place and of culture. But, that doesn’t mean that everyone else has to like it.
Amarinth - I’m sorry about your horrible experiences. How teachers could be so insensitive to your feelings, and how they could make the elementary mistake of thinking that a 13-year-old girl spoke for an entire class of people is beyond me. Sadly, I have no trouble imagining the entire thing happening. My sympathies.
The book may lose something to those who are young as they did not grow up with the blatant segregation that I did.
I mean my coworkers are shocked I went to a segregated school for the first two grades (I lived up NORTH and I just turned 37).
Now don’t get me wrong I realize that discrimination is still there but it isn’t as blatant as when I was a kid.
For instance if you said something stupid you would say “What a POLOCK thing to say.” If you were cheap you “JEW’D” a guy.
People certainly think this but they don’t blatantly say it or if they do they think it over then say it.
Gay kids come out at 14. They don’t understand what it was like only 20 years ago.
Admittedly this isn’t true in all parts of the USA but I still remember seperate water fountains for “COLOREDS” and “WHITES” and that is a powerful image that younger kids can’t understand.
If you don’t like the book, that is OK. Nothing is liked by everyone and there is no need to justify likes and dislikes.
However, your implied characterization of TKAM is not accurate. Notice the other comments from those who loved it. No one loved it for its symbolism. There was praise for it storyline, its prose, its characterization. These can have all left you cold, but they are hardly endorsements of the book as allegory.
Dr. Schadenfreude already answered this, (it was Boo), but just so you don’t think you’re going crazy, I thought I would mention that it is a little confusing because
(well, I guess we’re past spoilers at this point, but just in case …)
Scout, trapped in her ham costume, doesn’t realize that Boo has come out of his house. She tells Atticus that it was Jem who attacked Bob Ewell. Atticus is alarmed that Mr. Tate (the sheriff) wants to lie and say Bob Ewell fell on his knife, because he (Atticus) doesn’t want Jem to be given special treatment. The sheriff then spends two pages beating around the bush until Atticus realizes it is Boo that is being protected, not Jem.
Thanks delphica. I still haven’t found any of my copies, which means I have once again given them all away with “you just have to read this book” and will have to buy it again.
Soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweat talcum.
My bookclub read TKAM about a year ago, over the veto of one of the members who had read it in school and hated it. She re-read it as an adult and, while it isn’t her favorite all time book, did think it was much much better than she remembered.
P.S. it is rumored that Harper Lee may have co-written In Cold Blood. Believeable if you read TKAM, ICB and some of Capote’s other stuff. ICB has Ms. Lee’s fingerprints all over it.
The book is basically the story of the expanding of Scout’s mind and world. She sets the boundries of her world in the very beginning, and later they expand to include school, Calpernia’s “colored” world, and awareness of the Nazis in Germany. She goes from believing the world is safe and good to realizing that it isn’t always. She also realizes that the people who look the most frightening aren’t always. Tom Robinson gets convicted of rape because he is black, which makes him beneath even the poor white Ewells, and the most frightening character in her life, the elusive Boo, saves her life.
I tried to read In Cold Blood once and found it boring. I’ll have to give it another try.
I believe in one of my grandmother’s Reader’s Digest Condensed books. After that I had to go find the complete book. I missed a lot of the symbolism that is being mentioned here, but loved the book, and cried at the end.
It was my mother’s favorite book in the whole world, I think. She said she would bequeath her ceramic snail collection to anyone who would name their first male child Atticus Finch (so far, all of us had daughters, but Demi Moore named one of her kids Scout. Maybe I should mail it to her).
My mother told me that at one time, she had heard that Truman Capote acutally wrote that book under Harper Lee’s name. I don’t believe that to be true.
Good morning friends,
When I was in 7th grade (1966) our teacher read this book aloud to us, a chapter a day after lunch. The class was mesmerized. Being of a rather impatient nature, I smuggled the book out of the adult section of the public library, and read it non-stop over a weekend. ( I did return it. I am not a thief, but my juvenile section card would not allow me to check the book out) Reading it again as an adult led to a much greater understanding of Ms. Lee’s message. IMHO, this is great American literature at its finest.
I read TKAM for the first time two years ago, and thouroughly enjoyed it. I must say, Atticus Finch is one of the most admirable and likeable characters in fiction.
The book is powerful in it’s combination of the ordinary and the unforgettable. It never felt to me as though it had a message to push, because the story felt so real.