To Kill a Mocking Bird

„Kill all the bluejays if you can hit em, but remember it is a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

Scout Finch lives together with her father Atticus Scout and her brother Jem Scout, who is four years her senior, in a sleepy town in Alabama called Maycomb. The story takes place in the 1930`s. The favourite hobby of the whole family is reading, besides this, Scout , her brother Jem and a friend of them called Dill are also very interested in their mysterious neighbour Boo Radley who hasn`t left his house for ages. The make out some very funny plans to see him, but without success.

To the consternation of Maycomb’s racist white community, Atticus agrees to defend a black man named Tom Robinson, who has been accused of raping a white woman. Because of this his children are often abused in school as their father is known as a “nigger-lover”. At the trail, Scout and Jem are in the court with their father to watch it. It is clear that Tom Robinson did not rape Mayella , in fact she was trying to seduce him and was caught by her father, so she accused him of raping her. The wounds on her face are her fathers fault, as her father Mr. Ewell is an alcoholic and very aggressiv when he dirnks. All the evidences show that Tom is innocent, but he is coloured and so the jury decides that he is guilty. Despite the verdict, Bob Ewell feels that Atticus and the judge have made a fool out of him, and he vows revenge. One day, when Scout and Jem are walking home from a Halloween party Mr.Ewell attacks them, but one man helps them and kills Mr.Ewell with a kitchen knife: the mysterious Boo Radley.

Finally Scout has seen him, the mysterious Boo Radley, but after a while in their house he disappears again. It is the first and the last time Scout has seen Boo, but at last she recognized that Mr. Arthur Radlley (his full name) is just a human being.

Harper Lee:

Born: 1926 in Alabama

Historical Background:

The book`s head figure, Scout Finch, has a biography very similar to the authors, Harper Lee. So they both grew up in the 1930`s and their fathers worked as attorneys. Harper Lee was also very fond of reading and like Scout, she has also been six years old when the case of Scottsboro took place.

During the Jim Crow area in 1890 in the US, the laws against black became stricter and stricter, so there were signs nearly everywhere, in schools, parks, public toilets telling you “Whites only” and “Coloured”. Especially law enforcement used to be extremely injustice when it comes to black people. Jim Crow`s laws imposed mainly three things:

•The separation of races in public places, including public schools, parks, accommodations and transportation

•The disenfranchisement (taking away the right to vote) of adult black males through polling taxes, literacy tests and other tricks

•The banning of miscegenation, or interracial marriage

 In the 30`s a quite similar case like the one from Tom Robinson took place for real, but in northern Alabama, where two black men have also been accused of raping nine white woman, and they called themselves “Scottsboro Boys” A central figure was a heroic judge, a member of the Alabama Bar who overturned a guilty jury verdict against African American man, so in the end all of the men were sentenced to death, but with the help of his attorney a twelve year old boy, who was also accused survived. In the real case we also meet a jury that ignores evidences, like the woman suffering from no injuries, like the jury in “To kill a mocking bird” ignores the fact that Tom Robinson has a useless left arm.

“Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a negro comes up, is something I don`t pretend to understand.” Atticus Finch

Another great historical event that took place in the 1930 in the US and is partly a topic of the book is the “Great Depression” in the USA, because by 1933 more than 16 million Americans were unemployed. There was a Work Program called WPA, to which Scout refers when she is talking about Mr Ewell: “ Bob Ewell was the only man I ever heard of who was fired from the WPA for laziness.”