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To Kill a Mockingbird
Author: Harper Lee
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Some thoughts on To Kill a Mockingbird and its Influences on Modern America
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I'm a student from Germany and even though To Kill a Mockingbird was not a required reading, our teacher had us watch the film when it fit in with the topic and even based our exam on it.I read the book afterwards (I was ill when we watched the film) and it has become one of my all-time favorites as well.
My 22 year old son was assigned the book in 6th and 7th grade. That's when I finally read it. My 26 year old son didn't have it assigned, and so far, neither has my 13 year old. We're in Columbia, SC.
I think it is human nature for teenagers or younger readers to "hate" this novel, but come to appreciate it years later when they are wiser and more mature. It certainly has grown up themes and is read almost at all the high schools in our area. It's one of the books that comes up frequently on summer reading lists and required reading lists. Everitt, loved your thoughts about this great novel, and its influences both in the justice system as well as in a literary sense. To me, one of the central messages is doing something you know is right even if others don't agree or think it popular (Atticus taking up this case for Tom). Atticus also is a great role model for his children, Jem and Scout.
Jessie, wow, that's impressive if you daughter read this in 4th grade. I think this is definitely a novel that is better to read and appreciate in high school or even later.
What are summer reading lists? Sorry to go off topic, but I'm curious. It sounds like something I would like...
Our school year looks pretty much the same (only the breaks are shorter ...)but somebody should introduce the politicians to the summer book lists. That would help some students - even though I don't know who would "waste" his or her holidays for that.Thanks for the information! :)
Marlene wrote: "Our school year looks pretty much the same (only the breaks are shorter ...)but somebody should introduce the politicians to the summer book lists. That would help some students - even though I don..."Marlene,
Yeah, some students look at it as something they shouldn't have to do in their free time or time off.
Hence, the rewording "summer reading" to "required summer reading" :)
Franky wrote: "Jessie, wow, that's impressive if you daughter read this in 4th grade. I think this is definitely a novel that is better to read and appreciate in high school or even later. "Yes, she was too young for many of the themes. I was rather upset that this was on the 4th grade reading list.
It is a bit like going to the public library's young adult section and finding adult scifi and fantasy books. It's not as bad as it used to be, but I think some older librarians just didn't know where to put speculative fiction.
Everitt wrote: "As far as I know, which isn't far when it comes to the current school systems, TKAM is probably the most universally read book in the American school curriculum. I've never met anyone of my generat..."I graduated high school in Dallas in 1992. I don't recall ever being assigned it. (and I was that geek who read every book we were assigned -- the only one I didn't was The Stranger my senior year, and I was terrible wracked with guilt over it) I only just read it a few months ago for the first time.
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Lawyer wrote: "Jane wrote: "Is this news true ?
Mississippi school district pulls "To Kill A Mockingbird" for making people "uncomfortable".."
"Art is meant to disturb." - Georges Braque
"Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it." - Bertolt Brecht
"Art doesn't want to be familiar. It wants to astonish us. Or, in some cases, to enrage us. It wants to move us. To touch us. Not accommodate us, make us comfortable. " - Jamake Highwater
"The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame." - Oscar Wilde
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http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/10/14/..."
The governor of Missouri wrote a great letter on the subject and posted it on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/EricGreitens/stat...
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Why Are We Still Teaching 'To Kill a Mockingbird' in Schools?
Well, whatever book schools decide to ban, you can be sure that the kids will read it if the read nothing else.
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I learned that lesson decades ago. The quickest way to get kids to do anything is to tell them that they can't.
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I first read TKAM as a freshman in high school ... 3 years after it was first published. I read it in one sitting. The one and only "A" grade I got from Sister Audrey in high school English was for the paper I wrote on it, arguing that Atticus, not Scout, was the protagonist. I've read it multiple times since.
So many people think it is about racism. I think that racism is the vehicle Lee uses to write a book about personal responsibility and integrity. About doing what is right when seemingly everyone around you thinks differently. About doing what is right even when it may cost you (or your family) greatly.
When I taught literature & writing at Naval Academy Preparatory School (NAPS), I taught a lot of books that were banned once place or another. I found Catcher in the Rye boring as a responsible adult, different from reading it as “forbidden fruit” in junior high. TKAM always worked, as did and Catch-22, something about the madness of institutions spoke to us in the military. Sophie’s Choice worked super well at the end of my unit on “Obedience to Authority” (not always a good idea, tricky in the military) and “Moral & Ethical Decision-making (strongly in favor of that, but not easy in military or life). We had lively, engaging discussions which carried on beyond the classroom, students would discuss over meals, during breaks at athletic practice, etc. Had company officers, coaches, & drill sergeants commenting on how “fired up” my students were by class discussions. It mattered to me that they would be critical thinkers, compassionate & thoughtful leaders.
Tom, the NBC news article was very thought provoking. Thanks for sharing.
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I highly recommend the editorial of Harold Jackson.
Opinion
Why 'To Kill a Mockingbird' should be required reading, not banned | Jackson
Harold Jackson, Inquirer Editorial Page Editor
Updated: Wednesday, October 18, 2017, 12:37 PM
Gregory Peck played Atticus Finch, the lawyer for Tom Robinson, played by Brock Peters, in the 1962 film version of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’
News that a Mississippi school district has banned To Kill a Mockingbird was both amusing and concerning. Amusing, because school districts have been banning the novel that takes on racial prejudice ever since it was published in 1960. Concerning, because the need for young people to read this book is just as compelling as it was nearly 60 years ago.
Mockingbird is on the Library of Congress list of America’s most banned or challenged books, along with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, 1884; Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Alfred C. Kinsey, 1948; The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger, 1951; The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X and Alex Haley, 1965; and The Words of Cesar Chavez, Cesar Chavez, 2002.
The Biloxi, Miss., school district that banned Mockingbird didn’t give an official reason, but a school board member said: “There were some complaints about it. There is some language in the book that makes people uncomfortable, and we can teach the same lesson with other books.”
That’s a shame. Making people feel “uncomfortable” is never a good reason not to talk about a subject that isn’t talked about enough. The book, according to the school district’s website, was being read in an eighth-grade language arts class to teach adolescents that caring for others should not be dependent on race or education.
That’s a good lesson for young people across America. But it has additional resonance in Biloxi, which is where Confederate President Jefferson Davis built Beauvoir, the mansion he made his home after the Civil War. I visited Beauvoir in 1994 while on an assignment for the Baltimore Sun, all the time thinking the traitorous Davis’ postwar home should have been a federal prison.
My oldest brother, Anthony, was stationed in Biloxi while in the Air Force in the 1960s. He said he and other black airmen and soldiers were cautioned against going downtown because of racism. I made it a point when I was in Biloxi 30 years later to have a meal at the finest white-tablecloth restaurant in town.
As I recall, both the steak and the service were excellent. I thought Biloxi had come a long way. But today, Biloxi middle-school students are deemed too squeamish to read a book about racism.
The word nigger is used in Mockingbird, but not in a flippant or incendiary manner. Atticus Finch, the white lawyer who defends a black man accused of raping a white woman, explains to his young daughter why people were calling him a “nigger-lover.”
“You aren’t really a nigger-lover, then, are you?” Scout asks.
“I certainly am. I do my best to love everybody. I’m hard put, sometimes — baby, it’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is; it doesn’t hurt you.”
Lee became frustrated by the frequent banning of her book, and in 1966 wrote a letter to the Richmond News-Leader to protest the newspaper’s praise of the Hanover County, Va., school district for banning it. Her letter references George Orwell’s 1949 novel, 1984, which depicts a land ruled by a government that never means what it says and never says what it means.
“Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that To Kill a Mockingbird spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code of honor and conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of all Southerners,” said Lee’s letter. “To hear that the novel is ‘immoral’ has made me count the years between now and 1984, for I have yet to come across a better example of doublethink.”
I hoped to meet Lee at the 50th anniversary of the publication of her Pulitzer Prize-winning book. I was a guest of the Alabama Humanities Foundation at the commemoration, which included an auction of inspirational art at Wynfield Estate, a stately manor near Montgomery. But Lee, long a recluse, played to character and didn’t bother to show up.
I did have a lovely conversation with Mary Badham, who played Scout to Gregory Peck’s Atticus Finch in the Academy Award-winning film based on the book. The movie was released in 1962. Badham, who played only a few other movie and TV roles, seemed almost as much an enigma as Lee, who died last year at age 89. Badham was quiet, reserved, with none of the airs one might expect of a Hollywood actress.
Reflecting on that day, and my disappointment in not getting to meet Lee, I can’t help thinking that for all the progress this country has made in race relations since she wrote Mockingbird, it hasn’t come far enough — and in some respects, it has gone backward.
Some literary experts believe Go Set a Watchman, released in 2015 as the long-lost sequel to Mockingbird, was really the first draft of Lee’s seminal work, which was finally discovered after being missing for decades.
By several accounts, Lee was asked by her publishers to rewrite her first draft from the perspective of a child. That child became Scout, who didn’t reveal all the character traits of her father in Mockingbird. That was left to the adult Scout in Watchman.
“What would happen if all the Negroes in the South were suddenly given full civil rights?” asked Atticus in Watchman. “Would you want your state governments run by people who don’t know how to run ’em?”
It didn’t surprise me that the Atticus Finch depicted in Watchman was not without prejudice. After all, the character was supposed to be a white man in 1930s Alabama. Many fans of Mockingbird, however, refused to accept that Atticus had flaws. They didn’t want to read anything that destroyed the fantasy they had created.
That’s where our nation is right now, with too many of us refusing to accept reality.
Even when people see grown men kneeling on a football field to protest racism, they refuse to believe that’s what they’re doing. They dismiss the protesters as unpatriotic flag haters to avoid admitting that the racial prejudice that fuels the football players’ demonstrations does exist, and that pride in their country, which they want only to make better, unites the men linking arms.
In this twisted version of America where truth too frequently is put on the shelf because it makes people feel uncomfortable, you might be labeled a racist if you insist on bringing the subject up.
Instead of using books like Mockingbird to explain to children how racism works, we pretend they haven’t already experienced it, in one way or the other.
Instead of admitting prejudice exists and confronting it, we find excuses to change the subject. Harper Lee’s banned book doesn’t let us do that, which is why more people should read it."
Harold Jackson (@harjerjac) is editorial page manager for Philadelphia Media Network.
I couldn't agree more.
"Lawyer"
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Why 'To Kill a Mockingbird' should be required reading, not banned | Jackson"
Thank you for posting this. It is a truly remarkable commentary.
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Diane wrote: "Here's my thinking. I love To Kill a Mockingbird beyond words, so I don't care about the words or discomfort or morality of the characters, or motives, or whether it is taken off school lists. Peop..."Well said, Diane. The book I would memorize is Absalom, Absalom!
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http://blogs.ncte.org/index.php/2017/..."
Sounds like the school board wants their students to learn about life the same place they did, hanging out on the street corner.
Diane wrote: "Here's my thinking. I love To Kill a Mockingbird beyond words, so I don't care about the words or discomfort or morality of the characters, or motives, or whether it is taken off school lists. Peop..."Ironically, we are about to read Fahrenheit 451 (which is one of my favorites, along with To Kill a Mockingbird) and I thought your comment was so spot on Diane. Talk about people missing the bigger picture of a novel, with its timeless themes. Sometime people just have an agenda. I think any book could be read as long as it is handled in a mature way.
Joey, excellent choice.Diane, 451 is now on my tbr list.
Thanks Mike.
Book Concierge, I always thought it was about more than racism. Thanks for putting words to the thought.
With winter on its way I'm going to stock up on burnable books.
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John wrote: "With winter on its way I'm going to stock up on burnable books."ha! I know a lot of school districts are looking for ways to save money...this could be a good way to cut down on utility bills...
I have a played a mental game as to what book I would be ever since I read Fahrenheit 451 the first time in seventh grade, along with 1984 & Brave New World, it was a very dystopian year. I would start a run on the library after my classmates would check out my latest read, wait list on BNW had over 30 names on it by the end of the day. (I worked in the library during study halls, preferred to get away from noise & note-passing). The book I would be has changed over the years, but I was always find it illuminating about which books speak loudest to me as I gather experience.
Not sure if this article has been already posted, but thought it fit the discussion, as a colleague sent it to me a few days ago: http://time.com/4983786/biloxi-missis...
Kim, that is an interesting idea. I think we all try to pick books that ultimately define us as individuals. I really identify with Fahrenheit 451 because I see its aspects playing out in the real world.
I guess mine isA River Runs Through It and Other Stories
. The soliloquy at the end where the River Runs Through It breaks me up every time. The movie brings it all together.
My sophomore year of HS it was The Once and Future King, I was a sucker for stories about Camelot back then.
Diane wrote: "When I worked at a small bookstore in Oak Island years ago, a teenage boy came in looking for Catcher in the Rye for school. He was obviously not too excited about it. I handed it to him and explai..."Forbidden fruit is so much sweeter! BRILLIANT move, Diane!
First of all, I'll never read Go Set a Watchman>. I think Harper Lee never intended it to be published, and publishers coerced and took advantage of her in her declining years. Shame on them. Why, after all those years of not publishing anything, would she have approved of this, if she'd been strong and competent?I taught To Kill a Mockingbird for 30 years to tenth graders. I began by showing them videos of the Great Depression. Then I showed them the video Eyes on the Prize about the Civil Rights Movement. I talked to them before we started reading about the language in the book and how it related to the times in which it was set. I told them that if they stuck with me and kept reading, they would see that every person in the novel was treated with dignity. There was never a complaint or objection by my students to reading the novel. I think I dragged even the most reluctant reader along with us. And they loved it.
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A River Runs Through It and Other Stories (other topics)Go Set a Watchman (other topics)
To Kill a Mockingbird (other topics)
She didn't understand a bit of it, and she is, if I may say so myself, a rather smart cookie. She read it later and it is now one of her favorites.
I don't know if this book is still required reading anywhere else. So many things have changed since I was in school.