# Why is To Kill A Mockingbird so beloved? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 12, 2012, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498 "2012-10-12T10:07:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498/21 "2012-10-12T23:01:40Z")
> [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](#): > > _The Grapes of Wrath_ was obviously great as well (at least the Pulitzer and Nobel people thought so), but the story is so ingrained into our culture that it’s impossible to read it without already knowing half of it. I suppose it’s like watching Citizen Kane now and wondering what all the fuss is about. By this point in time, all the really innovative things has been integrated into moviemaking in general. One of my favorite novels of all time but year, it’s so ingrained into our consciousness it loses a lot of its impact. OTOH, it makes it ripe for parodies such as [this South Park episode](http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s12e06-over-logging). ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498/22 "2012-10-12T23:10:09Z")
> [@grude](#): > > The rest of the movie however is not all that great, the big moral point of the plot is pretty much duh though even if it was a big deal in 1962. Just so we are clear about the [time frame:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Kill_a_Mockingbird_(film)) > [@](#): > > The film’s young protagonists, Jean Louise “Scout” Finch (Mary Badham) and her brother Jem (Phillip Alford), live in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the **1930s.** The story covers three years, during which Scout and Jem undergo changes in their lives. ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498/23 "2012-10-12T23:17:07Z")
For example, “one white guy disagreed enough with the white community to risk their mild disapproval.” Recall the scene that Atticus was the only person between Tom and lynching? Not exactly ‘mild disapproval’. Atticus is the person we should all try to be, accomplished, never boastful, living by his principles regardless. Wife is gone, pretty neighbor lady is clearly interested, but Atticus doesn’t pursue it, for reasons we can only guess at. He has hidden depths we can only guess at, but we know they are there. And he doesn’t do this, either “feel scorn and contempt towards the other whites in the town”, even though he could, he treats all with respect. ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498/24 "2012-10-12T23:24:44Z")
> [@standingwave](#): > > One of my favorite novels of all time but year, it’s so ingrained into our consciousness it loses a lot of its impact. OTOH, it makes it ripe for parodies such as [this South Park episode](http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s12e06-over-logging). I don’t even have to click. It’s the one when they lose the internet, isn’t it? 🙂 Precisely what you said. It’s not so much a story at this point as a part of our culture. When I read it for the first time, when I got to the part: [QUOTE= Tom Joad, The Grapes of Wrath] Wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad - I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when the people are eatin’ the stuff they raise, and livin’ in the houses they build - I’ll be there, too." [/QUOTE] I actually laughed out loud, from surprise. “So THAT’S where that meme is from!” I’d heard it mimicked or parodied many times before reading the source. As for TKIM, I enjoyed it well enough, but didn’t LOVE it. I liked the parts with the kids playing and talking together, as it felt pretty authentic, but I think it’s largely a product of it’s time. It’s place in that time needs to be considered to fully appreciate it, and I think you can only approximate that without having lived through that period. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498/25 "2012-10-12T23:40:26Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > What if it had been written by Flannery O’Connor? > > We’d find out that the mom had been stupidly clinging to the self-entitled perquisites of Southern Belle-hood, resulting in her death (by being eaten by hogs) Perhaps you are thinking of Charles Portis. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498/26 "2012-10-12T23:59:21Z")
> [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](#): > > I don’t even have to click. It’s the one when they lose the internet, isn’t it? 🙂 Yeah, Over Logging (1206) Transient Man 5: Think about it. How many folk headin’ out to Californee? A million? More? And how much Internet you think they got out there? [the other men look at each other] Might be some Internet, sure, but with everyone tryin’ to use it at once, it’s gonna go real slow-like. I knows it ‘cause I seen it. My two children, they tried to load a Web page. Took them over three days. They sat there waitin’, and by the time the loadin’ bar was only half-full they was dead. [his eyes begin to well up] Starve on the Internet, with a belly stuck out like a bladder… [weeps] ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498/27 "2012-10-13T00:17:40Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > See, I am more cynical. I think it makes people feel good about themselves, because they identify with Atticus, and feel scorn and contempt towards the other whites in the town–something made especially easy by how trashy everyone else was. > > Now, the funny effect of this is that people change their own behavior to reflect their new view of themselves, but, IME, they rarely pass through a “Oh god, I suck” phase. They just seamlesses revise themselves. > > My major complaint about To Kill A Mockingbird is the scene where all the black people stand for him as he leaves. To me, the significance of that scene is the message that somehow what these people really care about is whether or not some white guy at least tried, that in the face of hopeless, institutionalized injustice, righteous black anger could be soothed by the fact that one white guy disagreed enough with the white community to risk their mild disapproval. It’s appropriate that for Scout, what matters is what her Dad did, and that what her dad did made him a hero. But the idea that the Robinsons–who are losing everything because of nothing, who are discovering that they are helpless victims of a cold and arbitrary world–would find any solace at all in knowing that one white guy out of the whole town was willing to speak for them really bothers me. Then Tom Robinson gets shot and blamed for it (I told him we’d appeal!) just to wrap up the story line neatly and get Atticus off the hook. When the townspeople went to the jail to lynch Robinson, they would have had to beat Atticus to a pulp or kill him to get past him. And they would have, and Atticus knew it. It was only Scout showing up and shaming them that saved Atticus and Robinson. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498/28 "2012-10-13T00:22:49Z")
There’s a very good documentary on both the film and the movie – _Hey Boo: Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbord_. If you have Netflix Streaming, you can see it there. It tries, most of the time successfully IMO, to put both in the context of their time. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498/29 "2012-10-13T01:12:58Z")
Because both the movie and the book are so quietly well done. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498/30 "2012-10-13T01:32:51Z")
> [@j666](#): > > Because both the movie and the book are so quietly well done. Well said. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498/31 "2012-10-13T01:38:51Z")
The book to me is a 20th century Huck Finn. It is a truly genuine American novel about real people and learning the lessons of life in the context of history. The film waters down the book somewhat, but it is artistically done. ---
**Author:** ![typoink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498/32 "2012-10-13T02:21:09Z")
_To Kill a Mockingbird_ is the best encapsulation I’ve seen for what it means to be a good person. You must understand that the world can be ugly, but trying to help, trying to look past the surface, and trying to be fair and honest and kind can help. You can’t make the world good, ever. You _can_ make it better. And you’re not allowed to demean or hate people, even if you ARE better than they are. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498/33 "2012-10-13T02:28:56Z")
Confession: I picked up the book only because of a girl I was dating. She had a cat named Boo Radley. She dumped me and I dumped the book. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498/34 "2012-10-13T02:45:23Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > What if it had been written by Flannery O’Connor? > > We’d find out that the mom had been stupidly clinging to the self-entitled perquisites of Southern Belle-hood, resulting in her death (by being eaten by hogs) > > Atticus is an adored icon of virtue in the eyes of Scout, but at best she’s an unreliable narrator, at worst a revisionist hagiograpger. In reality, Atticus is an ineffectual bumbler who loses all his cases. True, the town is shamed by their thwarted attemp at lynching, so Atticus is given all such cases in the future, assuring the same results with cleaner hands. > > Dill grows up to become the pet homosexual of the rich, until he betrays them in the pages of Esquire. He dies of drink after endless litigation against Gore Vidal, and an unshakable yet unsupported conviction that he’d have outdone Paul Lynne on Hollywood Squares. > > Boo Radley grows up and marries. Their firstborn is made to live in a tool shed, and forced to bury their second born while it’s still alive. He becomes a hateful widower after his son murders his mother after encountering her having sex with another man. Why do I have the feeling that you either haven’t read, or haven’t understood, Flannery O’Connor? ---
**Author:** ![Lochdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/edb3f5/32.png) [@Lochdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lochdale)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498/35 "2012-10-13T03:22:59Z")
Wonderful book but don’t ascribe a work of fiction as the end all and be all understanding of an era or culture. It’s fiction. That is all. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498/36 "2012-10-13T10:57:06Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Why do I have the feeling that you either haven’t read, or haven’t understood, Flannery O’Connor? Is that you, Hulga? ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498/37 "2012-10-13T11:43:02Z")
> [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](#): > > As for TKIM, I enjoyed it well enough, but didn’t LOVE it. I liked the parts with the kids playing and talking together, as it felt pretty authentic, but I think it’s largely a product of it’s time. It’s place in that time needs to be considered to fully appreciate it, and I think you can only approximate that without having lived through that period. That was part of the reason I liked it so much. It’s an authentic-seeming window to a different time and place. Harper Lee drew heavily on her childhood when writing it. (I’ve only read the book, I haven’t seen the film). ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498/38 "2012-10-13T18:43:28Z")
I did not get from the film that we were seeing everything through Scout’s eyes. In fact, I thought I had read the book in the past, but a lot of stuff in that documentary made me realize I hadn’t–I’d just seen the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498/39 "2012-10-13T18:51:40Z")
You can read the book in its entirety online for free [here](http://www.readanybook.com/ebooks/list-to-kill-a-mockingbird). ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2012, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498/40 "2012-10-13T21:26:26Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I did not get from the film that we were seeing everything through Scout’s eyes. In fact, I thought I had read the book in the past, but a lot of stuff in that documentary made me realize I hadn’t–I’d just seen the movie. The narrator is Scout as an adult, first-person. “Atticus would be up all night with Jem…” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-to-kill-a-mockingbird-so-beloved/637498.md?page=3)