To Kill a Mockingbird

It’s been roughly six years since I last read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.  Some of the details I remembered as if I had just finished reading it for the first time, like the judge chewing on his cigar, or Boo Radley saving Scout from the attack of Mr. Ewell, but mostly I just remember vague instances or the general plot line. Its like many movies, the more you watch/read the work the more you understand, especially considering my understanding then and my understanding now.

For some reason I had it in my head that Atticus won his trial with Tom Robinson when he made the point that it was seemingly impossible that Tom could have beat up Mayella, which was a very sound defense. After re-reading the book I realized that my assumption was wrong and that that scene was just one more example of the blatant racism of the time. The book is full of other themes and motifs that I'm sure were explained to me at the time of the first reading but that I either didn’t comprehend or simply forgot, most likely the latter. This book is one that I believe makes the best case of the “coming of age” theme of our class. Although all the works we have read have been made relevant I think this piece does the best job of portraying the change. The reader can see the progression of Jem from boyhood into manhood as he loses patience with Scout and takes more interest in his father’s work and the affairs of the town. But most poignant is the change that occurs in Scout at the end of the novel, when she realized that Boo Radley is a person, just like her. He isn’t some giant with blood stained hands that eats cats and squirrels and terrorizes the neighborhood, but is almost the exact opposite, a protector of the neighborhood in some ways.

What is interesting to me is the fact that Harper Lee never again published any of her work. I find it strange that after such widespread success of her work that she didn’t continue her writing career. Maybe she knew the value of going out on top. Regardless the work has no doubt had a large impact on a great many readers and will forever go down in history as a great American novel.