Why kill To Kill a Mockingbird?

Reading To Kill a Mockingbird for the second time, what stood out to me the most so far is what a powerful and unique voice Scout has as the narrator. Her character and the novel itself are completely inseparable; the story it contains wouldn’t be the same coming from any other source. It made me wonder if the youth of the narrator plays a role in the censorship of this book. Though I don’t (yet) have any actual knowledge of the settings in which this book has been challenged and for what reasons, I would assume it has to do with the racial issues and the issue of rape. Though these topics are certainly sensitive ones, they are for the most part nothing that isn’t already discussed in the average high school history class. It seems to me that addressing them from Scout’s perspective might only make them even more suitable for a young audience: she is quite innocent for the most part and she is struggling to understand complicated issues without all the facts, since some aren’t considered appropriate for her to know. I wonder how someone who sought to censor To Kill a Mockingbird would respond to that fact. Unlike Holden, who though he is a young person, narrates the story in a manner that is in many ways older than his actual age, Scout almost always acts her age (though she is admittedly quite smart for that age). Again, I’m interested to know the specific reasons people try to censor this book and what their arguments are, because in my mind they’d be hard pressed to find many very convincing ones.

More Complex Issues

I know I read this book in junior high, and I think again in high school, but I am able to have much more appreciation for the book now than I did the first few times I read it. As I read it now, I am able to see all of the many different complex issues raised in this book. What is so wonderful about this book is that it is able to capture so many different aspects of life. I’ve always remembered the book in terms of the trial and the race issues, but there is so much more to it than that, and I am glad I am rereading it and seeing all that it has to offer. We get glimpses of ineffective education and illiteracy. We see complex relationships in terms of community, religion, race, and many other factors. It’s nice to pick up this book years later and take from it all that it has to offer.

One of the main issues that arises in the beginning of the book is the loss of innocence in Jem and Scout not only from growing up, but also from everything they have to endure and see in relation to the trial. We see Jem especially growing up and making connections that are still over Scout’s head. When Jem becomes distressed over Atticus giving the blanket back to the Radley’s many things come together at once. Jem is beginning to understand that Boo Radley is a victim of circumstance, whereas Scout still fears him. Jem is knows that Boo wants to be a part of life outside of his home, but in many ways he is a prisoner. Jem is deeply saddened when the tree gets cemented not because of his own loss, but because of the loss Boo is sure to feel. That was Boo’s way of feeling connected with people outside in the world, and it was taken away from him. It’s nice to see how Jem is able to pick up on all these issues relating to Boo and beginning to understand Boo in a very different way than when the book first began.

One Smart First Grader

Scout Finch may very well be the smartest first grader ever, and is most definitely (at least I feel comfortable asserting) the most intelligent, well written first grader to emerge from a rural town in southern Alabama. Throughout her narration of To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout continually presents her narrative at a level even the most accomplished writer strives for, even when her dialogue at times demonstrates her inability to construct a sentence with proper grammar. With this in mind, Harper Lee answers a question I have long struggled with in my own writing: How do you present a story via a first person narrator whose education in considerably limited, and reconcile this limitation with your need to present a narrative beyond the intellectual ability of your narrator? Lee seems to answer with a resounding, “Ignore the limitation.”

We’ve often talked about “trusting” or “not trusting” narrators throughout the semester, and with Scout in mind, I think Harper Lee proves that we most certainly can be too academic in our reading of novels. A real Scout simply cannot exist. No first grader, whether from rural southern Alabama or the most prestigious academy in France, can portray a narrative as intricate and compelling as Scout. Yet, we believe Scout despite her being perhaps the most unrealistic narrator of any text in this course.

So what lesson does Scout teach us? Should we criticize Lee for presenting us with such a farce of a narrator? I think not. Rather, it seems to me that as academics, sometimes we look to far into things. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how “reliable” a narrator is. Sometimes we care too much about what broader commentary an author might be trying to make. Sometimes we need to just sit back and enjoy the story.

(To be fair, at the end of this week’s reading Lee hints that this may be Scout’s memoir (101), and thus my argument here may be the farce, not Scout. This is my first time reading the book)

self-censored

I actually had an incident today in which censorship became an issue.

Strangely, I was the one wishing for more of it this time.

A group in directing proposed a piece that would contain live video footage of surgery. They had a picture. It was quite graphic. I asked what sort of disclaimer or warning would be given before the show so that people who can't watch graphic images could choose not to watch. She replied by saying there wouldn't be one.

I was appalled.

This is how I see it. Person A has a right to free speech ( as we all do). Person B doesn't want to hear/read what Person A has to say. Person B should not be allowed to silence Person A, HOWEVER Person A should not be allowed to force Person B to listen/read.

It bring this school censorship into perspective. I can see how parents would be truly worried about their children being exposed to something those children would not be comfortable with. And parents censoring is one thing but what if one child truly did not want to be exposed to something they found upsetting, could that child really stand against a school department? This may be a reason parents intervene.

We may not be able to relate to a child who refuses to read something like Giovanni's Room because homosexuality happens, but is making them read it really that different from making someone who feels faint at the sight of blood watch open heart surgery? I know what I said in my last blog - that if it happens in real life you should have to be exposed to it. However, now that I think about it, I know heart surgery happens (and there's nothing wrong with it, but I can't watch it without upsetting myself so I have a right not to.

Good, Bad, Neither or Both?

When I took a class on political philosophy my sophomore year, before we did any assigned readings, the professor gave us a worksheet of general questions to think about and respond to. The point of the assignment was to show us how to engage the future readings (Hobbes, Locke, Marx etc.) in a discussion of philosophy as opposed to a discussion of politics or some other medium. One of the questions was, "Do you think that people are inherently good, bad, both, or neither?" I answered like any good Ayn Rand scholar (although this was before I read Atlas Shrugged) that the answer has to be neither, primarily because to demand that human nature is constrained by anything, in either direction, is to make a mockery of free will. As rational beings, whether we are good or bad in a certain situation or just overall is defined by the choices we make, which we execute with our own free will.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, I think the reason that Atticus fights so hard to protect Jem and Scout is that he agrees that human nature is not inherently good or bad, but that over the course of life, it can be manipulated or taught to be one or the other. As kids, they just innocently believe that everyone is good. But the ensuing experiences involving racism in the community show that a lot of people are bad. It is of vital importance that Scout and Jem understand that people are neither good nor bad by nature, but can be either. People are either good or bad based on the choices they make, and have the capacity for both. Atticus wants his kids to be fully educated, fully informed, so that they can understand the good and the bad in the world, and then rationally choose to be good.

Are coming of age novels really written for kids?

For the most part, we have discussed censorship as it affects young people in the classrooms of America. And I would guess that many of us have been taught one or more of these texts, especially To Kill a Mockingbird, in grade school or high school. Additionally, almost all of these texts could fall under the category of bildungsroman, or the coming of age story. And while I certainly would not like to argue that any of these texts are inappropriate for young people, I do not believe that they were written explicitly for a young audience.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, we hear the story of Scout as she grows up and learns about race, poverty and class in Alabama in the 1930s. However, it is presented by Harper Lee as a memoir of sorts; Scout is looking back on the events of her childhood as an adult. Of course, this is a common voice to deliver a bildungsroman, one which allows the narrator to give a less biased impression of his or her own past. It also allows the narrator to include information that he or she did not understand at the time, but that the audience will be able to tease out of the text. But these various levels of understanding inherent in the text seem to target an adult audience rather than a young audience.

Additionally, it is not children who create the canon or decide what books they will be reading in class, but rather English professors and teachers. As we learned, Catcher in the Rye became popular first among the literary elite rather than teenagers and proceeded to trickle down into high school classrooms. I believe that the common line of thought is that books written from the point of view of a young person will connect far better with young people, allowing them to learn and grow with the characters. But if the books are written by adults for an adult audience, that does not necessarily have to hold true. For example, Catcher in the Rye is taught more frequently in the high school than Franny and Zooey, possibly just because Catcher stars a 16 year old boy rather than two people in their twenties. While I think that Mockingbird and Catcher do have their place in the classroom, I think that often the coming of age novel is taught to younger readers simply because of the age of the protagonist.

Oh Atticus...The Subversion of Masculinity in To Kill a Mockingbird

Atticus Finch is an iconic and compelling character in both the literary and cinematic canon thanks to his depiction by Gregory Peck and Harper Lee herself. Atticus is often held up as a new kind of man, an educated, measured lawyer in the old South who finds the courage to quietly stand up in the face of injustice and to end suffering in many ways.

I've always been interested in how much hold Atticus has on the minds and hearts of the many educated people that I know. He is held up as a new symbol of masculinity, especially by the parents I know, some of which have named their children after him. It is certainly clear that Lee's work is masterfully done for most readers end up worshipping, fearing, and loving Atticus just as Scout does. He is a man of some mystery, but of endless love and compassion. It makes so much sense to me after all the gentle talks Scout and her father have that parents would hope their sons could have the same quiet nobility.

(Spoilers follow.)

And yet there's something unbelievably subversive about Atticus too. Despite his encounter with the rabid dog, he abhors guns and violence and values knowledge above all. He takes abuse from Ewell and his supporters on the chin using nonviolence. He is a single father who refuses to remarry, proving that he can be a giving, approachable custodial parent to his children (with help from Calpurnia of course.) It should also probably be noted that this notion of the more educated, less violent Southern male is also highlighted in the character of Boo Radley, who does not match the archetype of the powerful Southern gentleman either, and Jem and Scout's attempts to emulate Southern alpha male behavior before their father shows them the folly of hurting other people to make them think like you.