Good and Evil

I like To Kill a Mockingbird for many reasons: the way it’s written, all the details of setting and character, the way Lee describes childhood thoughts and actions so well with her characterizations of Scout and Jem, but I would hesitate to applaud the book for its treatment of race relations. There are a lot of parts in the book that make me uncomfortable and while most of them can be explained away by considering that the book is representing a particular time period (the gratuitous use of the n-word, for one, and Aunt Alexandra’s ladies’ society discussions, for another), there are other things that are a little more baffling. I don’t know what to think about a line like this, for instance: “The bittersweet smell of clean Negro welcomed us as we entered the churchyard,” thought by Scout when Calpurnia takes her and Jem to her church. It’s clear that Scout, and therefore Lee, meant something by this description, or it wouldn’t have been included, but I have no idea what. At the end of the book, Heck Tate’s assertion that “there’s just some kind of men you have to shoot before you can say hidy to ’em” is also another theme running through this book that makes me uncomfortable. It echoes Atticus’ description earlier of the Ewells as trash and seems to reiterate an idea that some people are just born evil. This seems like a pretty problematic statement to me, and not a very useful one. It’s really only one step from this to Mrs. Farrow’s assertion that “We can educate ’em till we’re blue in the face, we can try till we drop to make Christians out of ’em, but there’s no lady safe in her bed these nights.”

Many of the complicated issues in this book are tied up very neatly by the end of the book; one could argue that it is almost too neat and simple in its portrayals. Tom dies, but Bob Ewell does as well. Boo Radley turns out to be a gentle, Nice Guy, albeit one who quite easily shoves a kitchen knife into a man’s chest. Atticus is unequivocally Good, as is Miss Maudie and Judge Taylor. Even Dolphus Raymond turns out to be drinking only Coke out of a paper bag. It makes things easier to have some characters who are so Good and some who are clearly Bad, but in the end, it’s still a little difficult to believe.