To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic novel written by Harper Lee, first published in 1960. The novel tells the story of a young girl named Scout Finch and her brother Jem, who are raised in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama during the 1930s. The story is narrated by Scout, who looks back on her childhood experiences as she grows older.
Harper Lee was born in Monroeville, Alabama in 1926. She was the youngest of four children, and grew up in a close-knit community where everyone knew everyone else. Lee attended Huntingdon College in Montgomery for a year before transferring to the University of Alabama, where she studied law. After graduation, she moved to New York City and worked as an airline reservation clerk while trying to break into the publishing industry.
Lee's writing career began in earnest when she submitted a manuscript to the J.B. Lippincott Company in 1957. The novel, which would become To Kill a Mockingbird, was accepted and published three years later. The book was an instant success and has since become a beloved classic of literature, with more than 50 million copies sold worldwide.
To Kill a Mockingbird is set in the Deep South during the Great Depression, and deals with themes of race, prejudice, and injustice. The story centers around the trial of Tom Robinson, a black man who is falsely accused of raping a white woman. Through the eyes of Scout, readers are able to see the biases and prejudices of the town's residents and how they affect the trial.
In addition to tackling difficult social issues, To Kill a Mockingbird is also a coming-of-age story that follows Scout as she grows and learns about the world around her. The novel is narrated by Scout in the first person, and readers are able to see the world through her eyes and experience her thoughts and feelings as she navigates the challenges of growing up.
Harper Lee's writing style is straightforward and engaging, and she is able to draw readers into the story and make them feel like they are a part of it. To Kill a Mockingbird has won numerous awards and accolades, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961. It has been translated into more than 40 languages and is considered a modern classic.
In conclusion, Harper Lee is the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, a timeless novel that tackles important social issues and tells the story of a young girl's coming of age in the Deep South. Lee's writing style is engaging and her storytelling ability has made To Kill a Mockingbird a beloved classic that continues to be read and enjoyed by readers around the world.
7 Key Themes in To Kill a Mockingbird
The Wall Street Journal. Published July 11, 1960, the novel was an immediate bestseller and won great critical acclaim, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961. Atticus, however, proves Tom's innocence by demonstrating that while Mayella's face was beaten and bruised on her right side, Tom's left arm had been rendered completely useless by an earlier injury. Retrieved February 19, 2016. Plotand Major Characters To Kill a Mockingbirdis set in the small, rural town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the early 1930s. Lee assumed significant care responsibilities for her aging father, who was thrilled with her success, and who even began signing autographs as "Atticus Finch".
Quick summary of To Kill a Mockingbird
To inquiring reporters, she threw out tantalizing hints of a second novel in progress, but the months and the years went by, and nothing appeared in print. Boo Radley, secretly observing the scene, intervenes in the scuffle, and Bob Ewell is stabbed and killed in the process. What about people in general? On July 11, 1960, the 34-year-old novelist Nelle Harper Lee publishes her first novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus is clearly the hero of the novel, and functions as a role model for his children. In February 2015, the State of Alabama, through its Human Resources Department, launched an investigation into whether Lee was Go Set a Watchman. Retrieved November 30, 2014.
Harper Lee (Author of To Kill a Mockingbird)
The following fall, Bob Ewell, incensed by Atticus's treatment of him during the trial, attacks Scout and Jem with a knife as they are walking home from a school Halloween pageant. By January 1966, the critical reviews were so strong that the initial print run of some 240,000 hardcover copies flew off the shelves. Before the jury departs to deliberate, Atticus appeals to their sense of justice, imploring them not to allow racial prejudice to interfere with their deliberations. Retrieved April 29, 2011. Lee talked in some detail about her literary ambition: to describe, in a series of novels, the world she grew up in and now saw disappearing. At night she wrote on a desk made from a door. How do they represent the concept of compassion and "walking in someone's shoes? Retrieved May 31, 2019.
To Kill A Mockingbird Themes, Symbols, Motifs & Character Analysis
The New York Times. Though she did not complete the law degree, she studied for a summer in Oxford, England, before moving to New York in 1950, where she worked as a reservation clerk with Eastern Air Lines and BOAC. She lived with Alice, who practiced law in her 90s and died in 2014 at 103. Recalling her experiences as a six-year-old from an adult perspective, Jean Louise Finch, nicknamed "Scout," describes the circumstances involving her widowed father, Atticus, and his legal defense of Tom Robinson, a local black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. In one of her rare interviews with a Chicago radio show in 1964, Ms. . Retrieved February 19, 2021.
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She did, however, send a letter to the magazine Oprah in 2006 describing her childhood love of reading. To Kill a Mockingbirdalso can be read as a coming-of-age story featuring a young girl growing up in the South and experiencing moral awakenings. To Kill a Mockingbirdhas endured as a mainstay on high school and college reading lists. After her death, The New York Times filed a lawsuit that argued that since Lee's will was filed in a probate court in Alabama that it should be part of the public record. The book explores the key themes of racism and its causes and effects, as well as the aspects of courage and tolerance. Engaging and down to earth, she opened doors that, without her, would have remained closed to her companion, whose flamboyantly effeminate manner struck many townspeople as outlandish.
