To Kill a Mockingbird: An Introduction

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To Kill a MockingbirdAn Introduction
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One of the most influential novels in American
history.

• Rated, after the Bible, as one book most often
  cited as making a difference in peoples lives
• Considered the one book every adult should read
  before they die by British librarians
• Voted the Best Novel of the 20th century by
  readers of the Library Journal
• Ranked fifth on the Modern Librarys Readers
  List of the 100 Best Novels in the English
  language since 1900

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So whats so special about To Kill a Mockingbird?
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Literature helps us to see with other eyes, to
imagine with other imaginations, to feel with
other hearts, as well as with our own.
C.S. Lewis
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The book to read is not the one which thinks
for you, but the one which makes you think.
James McCosh
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Reading---and thinking---requires careful
attention to detail
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Pay careful attention to the butterfly in the
following picture

• What is it flying to?
• What color is it?

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(No Transcript)
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Pay careful attention to the woman in the
following picture

• Is her eye open or closed?
• What color is her lipstick?

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(No Transcript)
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You can learn to

• . . . see things differently.

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Questions to ask yourself while reading To Kill a
Mockingbird

• What am I learning
• to see with other eyes,
• to imagine with other imaginations, and
• to feel with other hearts?
• What is this book making me think about?

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The Author

• Nelle Harper Lee, 34 year-old woman
• Born (1926) and raised in Monroeville, AL
• Daughter of Amasa Lee, a small-town lawyer and
  widower
• Law school drop out, 1949
• Childhood friend of author Truman Capote

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The Setting

• Maycomb, Alabama, a tiny (fictional) town, much
  like the real town of Monroeville.

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small-town Alabama, 1930s
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CourthouseMonroeville, Alabama
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An Alabama Sharecroppers Home, 1936
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African American church in Alabama in the 1930s
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The Setting

• Early 1930s, during the Great Depression

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The Scottsboro Boys1931-1937

• Nine African American teenagers falsely
  accused of rape. The investigations and trials
  lasted 6 years

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A white lawyer, Sam Leibowitz, defended the
accused boys.
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The Dust Bowl in Oklahoma created problems . . .

• and extreme poverty in every state in America.

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Franklin D. Roosevelt succeeded Herbert Hoover as
President
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King Kong, the hit movie of 1933
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Lou Gerhig and Babe Ruth were the most famous
baseball players in America
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America in the 1950s while Harper Lee was
writing To Kill a Mockingbird
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Southern states opposed school integration
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May 1954 Supreme Court Orders School Integration
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August 1955A 14 year-old Chicago boy, Emmett
Till,

• is murdered in Mississippi

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Tills killers are tried for murder

• and are declared not guilty by an all-white
  jury.

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The Characters

• Narrator Scout Finch, six-year-old girl
• Atticus Finch, Scouts father, widower,
  small-town lawyer
• Jem Finch, Scouts older brother
• Dill Harris, strange, pint-sized summer neighbor
• Boo Radley, mysterious reclusive neighbor
• Tom Robinson, African American man accused of
  rape
• Bob Ewell, poor red-neck racist

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Atticus teaches Scout an important lesson
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The Story

• Set in small-town Alabama in the 1930s
• Spans three years
• Narrated by Scout
• 3 children learn about life by witnessing the
  complicated problems facing adults in their small
  Alabama town.

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Boo Radleys house
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What will To Kill a Mockingbird make you think
about?

• What can you learn from reading it?

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If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, youll
get along a lot better with all kinds of folks.
You never really understand a person until you
consider things from his point of view . . .
until you climb into his skin and walk around in
it. Atticus Finch, TKAM, p. 34
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Whose skin will Scout get to climb into?
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What kind of people do we need to understand?
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Mockingbirds dont do one thing but make music
for us to enjoy. They dont eat up peoples
gardens, dont nest in corncribs, they dont do
one thing but sing their hears out for us.
Thats why its a sin to kill a
mockingbird. Miss Maudie, TKAM, page 94
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Who will turn out to be the mockingbirds in
this story?
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Who was excluded from mainstream American life
in the 1930s? The 1950s? The 2000s?
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What will Scout and Jem learn about life and
about human nature?
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Who will Scout---and you---learn . . .

• to see differently?

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To learn more about Harper Lee
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PowerPoint presentation prepared by Chris Crowe,
Professor of English, Brigham Young University,
Provo, Utah.