To Kill a Mockingbird is a sentimentalized recollection of a changing time in a small southern town. It is about the common humanity of all people and what happens when that is ignored.
The Grapes of Wrath is a black and white fable where the character’s sufferings are used to elicit political feelings in the reader.
And of course the OP is dead wrong. If indeed, TKaM was “white apologist crap” then it would have a happy ending. The white folks in town would realize how wrong they were. Instead, nothing like that happens.
Even Atticus is a reluctant warrior, appointed by the court, who finds his sense of justice outweighs his Southern instincts. Scout is just defending her father. Few heroes here.
Most of the novel is just about Scout’s fascination with her unusual neighbors, etc.
And of course, no one else seems to think it is white apologist crap since the book is widely regarded as great American literature.
Basically To Kill a Mockingbird is a fictional book about a fictional town with fictional people living there. Since Harper Lee is dead we’ll probably never know why he wrote it. Why not just take it as a parable about how things could be better?
He?
He who is a her.:smack:
No one has started a thread on Moby Dick and homosexuality. Still the greatest American novel, IMO.
(Disclaimer: I haven’t read TKAM since jr. high 30+ years ago.)
I think the OP has some valid points. That said, I think the important thing is to view this as a book written in the early 60s for an audience of people living in the early 60s.
To the extent that it’s a book that is intended to cause young white people to be less racist (certainly an arguable proposition to begin with), I think it’s vastly more effective as is than if it had been more cynical and brutal. Some random 12 year old in 1960 who has presumably been exposed to a fair bit of racism already but hasn’t had time to calcify into a full on racist is more likely to be charmed and swayed by a story in which he can identify with heroic characters than a book which is just “hey, here’s the brutal and unapologetic truth about how things are, and you white people are nearly universally awful…”.