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The Story Behind Harper Lee's to Kill a Mockingbird
How does this novel parallel the events of the civil rights movement? What famous U.S. writer was the character of Dill based upon? What was "Jim Crow"? Discover how racism in the American South inspired Harper lee's award-winning novel of friendship and equality.
56 pages, Library Binding
First published November 30, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 4, 2016
Bryon Giddens-White, The Story Behind Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird (History in Literature) (Oxford, ENG; Heinemann, 2007).
This is an exceptional resource on the background issues of the phenomenal novel. This 'Story Behind' far exceeds my expectations. The only reason why I didn't rate it 5-out-of-5 stars is simply because I reserve that rating for life-changing epics. But I'd like to rate this book 4.9-out-of-5, it's that good!
“Lee's novel explores other themes besides race and justice. These include childhood, education, family, religion, and what it means to be a woman.” (p6)
“Lee was the youngest of four children. … their mother was Frances Finch Lee. Lee used the name Finch for Atticus's family in To Kill A Mockingbird.” (p6)
Lee's father was Amasa Coleman Lee, a unique name that was matched by the 'Atticus' (p6).1
“The minute … I started to study law, I loathed it. I always wanted to be a writer.” - A 1963 interview with Lee. (p7)
In 1956 Lee was supported by friends for a year. After comments from a publisher she revised her work several times. Then after being offered a contract she spent another two and a half years polishing her book. (p8)
“Lee's novel opens in the summer of 1933 and ends in October 1935.” (p8)
[Mistake: photo text about Roosevelt's presidential speech should read 1933, not 1944. (p9)]
“But Robinson tries to escape from prison. Prison guards shoot Robinson 17 times, killing him.” (p10). We are told he runs, but did he? I wonder if he was straight out murdered.
Slavery is atrocious! (p12) “Race relations in the United States grew out of a system of slavery. This system began when white Europeans enslaved black Africans and sent them to the Caribbean and Brazil. The slave trade lasted from the early 1500s to the mid-1800s.” (p12)
Why did Mr Avery associate the first snowfall since the Appomattox surrender with Jem and Scout? (p13)
Bob Ewell's full name is Robert E. Lee Ewell. This general is said to be a distant relation of Harper Lee. (p14)
White supremacy terrorist groups include the Klu Klux Klan (KKK) and the Knights of the White Camellia. “In chapter 11, Mrs Dubose … upsets Jem by insulting Atticus, 'Your father's no better than the niggers and trash he works for.' Jem fights back by destroying a section of Mrs Dubose's garden where white camellias grow.” (p15)
W.E.B. Du Bois wrote 'The Souls of Back Folk' (1903) (p18).
“We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar, in his Lyrics of Lowly Life (1896):
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
In the 1880s, an outbreak of lynchings began. Mark Twain's 1901 essay was entitled 'The United States of Lyncherdom'. Most lynching victims were southern black men. A photo shows the lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930 (p20).
“Doctors in the Scottsboro case found no evidence that a rape had occurred. During robinson’s trial (in the novel), Atticus points out that no doctors were called to the scene of the crime, and no medical examination took place afterward.” (p22)
Interesting background to Martin Luther King's famous speech, “I Have a Dream”:
14-year-old Emmett Till was murdered by white men on August 28th 1955. Despite J.W. Milan and Roy Bryant boasting about how they tortured and mutilated young Emmett an all-white jury acquitted the two men. (p24-25)
MLK chose the 8th anniversary of Emmett's murder to rally a quarter of a million people to march to Washington D.C. and deliver his speech. (p27)
I wonder if Harper Lee may have been 'queer', as reflected by Scout's resistance to dressing like a 'lady'. (p36) With the arrival of her Aunt Alexandra, Scout “felt the starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on me.” (p37)
“In some ways, Mayella Ewell is also one of the novel's mockingbirds.” (p37)
“In a 1947 study, a sociologist asked white southerners to say what they thought African Americans most wanted by demanding their civil rights. The number one response was intermarriage and sexual relations with whites.” (p37)
After the Brown vs Board of Education case which declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional, Alabama Senator Walter C. Givhan said, “What is the real purpose of this? To open the bedroom doors of our white women to Negro men.” (p38)
TKAM fits the pattern of a coming-of-age novel. Bildungsroman is a German word for a novel about a character's formative years. Many consider “Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship” (a novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) to be the first of this type. (p39)
Atticus finally realises that he has placed too much faith in the legal system. (p43)
Research to follow up:
* Toni Morrison's 'The Bluest Eye' (Vintage, 1999) originally 1970.
* Carson McCullers' 'The Member of the Wedding (Penguin Modern Classics, 2006) originally 1946.
* Fearful Symmetry (1998) documentary about the 1962 film TKAM.
* The life of Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931)
This is an exceptional resource on the background issues of the phenomenal novel. This 'Story Behind' far exceeds my expectations. The only reason why I didn't rate it 5-out-of-5 stars is simply because I reserve that rating for life-changing epics. But I'd like to rate this book 4.9-out-of-5, it's that good!
“Lee's novel explores other themes besides race and justice. These include childhood, education, family, religion, and what it means to be a woman.” (p6)
“Lee was the youngest of four children. … their mother was Frances Finch Lee. Lee used the name Finch for Atticus's family in To Kill A Mockingbird.” (p6)
Lee's father was Amasa Coleman Lee, a unique name that was matched by the 'Atticus' (p6).1
“The minute … I started to study law, I loathed it. I always wanted to be a writer.” - A 1963 interview with Lee. (p7)
In 1956 Lee was supported by friends for a year. After comments from a publisher she revised her work several times. Then after being offered a contract she spent another two and a half years polishing her book. (p8)
“Lee's novel opens in the summer of 1933 and ends in October 1935.” (p8)
[Mistake: photo text about Roosevelt's presidential speech should read 1933, not 1944. (p9)]
“But Robinson tries to escape from prison. Prison guards shoot Robinson 17 times, killing him.” (p10). We are told he runs, but did he? I wonder if he was straight out murdered.
Slavery is atrocious! (p12) “Race relations in the United States grew out of a system of slavery. This system began when white Europeans enslaved black Africans and sent them to the Caribbean and Brazil. The slave trade lasted from the early 1500s to the mid-1800s.” (p12)
Why did Mr Avery associate the first snowfall since the Appomattox surrender with Jem and Scout? (p13)
Bob Ewell's full name is Robert E. Lee Ewell. This general is said to be a distant relation of Harper Lee. (p14)
White supremacy terrorist groups include the Klu Klux Klan (KKK) and the Knights of the White Camellia. “In chapter 11, Mrs Dubose … upsets Jem by insulting Atticus, 'Your father's no better than the niggers and trash he works for.' Jem fights back by destroying a section of Mrs Dubose's garden where white camellias grow.” (p15)
W.E.B. Du Bois wrote 'The Souls of Back Folk' (1903) (p18).
“We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar, in his Lyrics of Lowly Life (1896):
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
In the 1880s, an outbreak of lynchings began. Mark Twain's 1901 essay was entitled 'The United States of Lyncherdom'. Most lynching victims were southern black men. A photo shows the lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930 (p20).
“Doctors in the Scottsboro case found no evidence that a rape had occurred. During robinson’s trial (in the novel), Atticus points out that no doctors were called to the scene of the crime, and no medical examination took place afterward.” (p22)
Interesting background to Martin Luther King's famous speech, “I Have a Dream”:
14-year-old Emmett Till was murdered by white men on August 28th 1955. Despite J.W. Milan and Roy Bryant boasting about how they tortured and mutilated young Emmett an all-white jury acquitted the two men. (p24-25)
MLK chose the 8th anniversary of Emmett's murder to rally a quarter of a million people to march to Washington D.C. and deliver his speech. (p27)
I wonder if Harper Lee may have been 'queer', as reflected by Scout's resistance to dressing like a 'lady'. (p36) With the arrival of her Aunt Alexandra, Scout “felt the starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on me.” (p37)
“In some ways, Mayella Ewell is also one of the novel's mockingbirds.” (p37)
“In a 1947 study, a sociologist asked white southerners to say what they thought African Americans most wanted by demanding their civil rights. The number one response was intermarriage and sexual relations with whites.” (p37)
After the Brown vs Board of Education case which declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional, Alabama Senator Walter C. Givhan said, “What is the real purpose of this? To open the bedroom doors of our white women to Negro men.” (p38)
TKAM fits the pattern of a coming-of-age novel. Bildungsroman is a German word for a novel about a character's formative years. Many consider “Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship” (a novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) to be the first of this type. (p39)
Atticus finally realises that he has placed too much faith in the legal system. (p43)
Research to follow up:
* Toni Morrison's 'The Bluest Eye' (Vintage, 1999) originally 1970.
* Carson McCullers' 'The Member of the Wedding (Penguin Modern Classics, 2006) originally 1946.
* Fearful Symmetry (1998) documentary about the 1962 film TKAM.
* The life of Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931)
July 24, 2018
Interesting insight to the story behind “To Kill a Mockingbird”. A great history lesson. A quick & easy read.
November 16, 2015
What an enjoyable little insight into the history of To Kill a Mockingbird ! It covered a myriad of topics which, I felt, were left unconsidered or only briefly grazed over in other books of this type. There was no in-depth study into the novel itself but a broader perspective was given by discussion of such topics as information on the author's history, details of the period it was set in, the context of publications etc.
This is a perfect companion to the well-loved and well-known Harper Lee novel.
This is a perfect companion to the well-loved and well-known Harper Lee novel.
December 13, 2011
I borrowed this book from my son's junior high school library. It is an excellent book! I learned several "new to me" things about the civil rights movement as well as about the novel and Harper Lee. I highly recommend it to anyone that is a Mockingbird fan.
February 1, 2010
This book is wonderful. It reminds me of something that would capture you and get you addicted to reading it.
Read
November 5, 2010Although this is a teen book I found it very interesting. We all had to read To Kill a Mockingbird in high school but this book made the story real for me.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews