Right or Wrong?

(or `To Kill a Mockingbird` as the life’s guide-book)

[1] I have a dreamthat one day this

nation will rise up and live out

the true meaning of its creed:

"We hold these truths to be self-

evident: that all men are created

equal." [2]

Martin Luther King,

`To Kill a Mockingbird` can be considered, without any doubts, as the most memorable, powerful and emphatic book the 20-th century. Harper Lee, the author of the novel, managed to sense the right time for the right words. The time of troubles is outside the Americans` streets. When earlier the humble people kept silence now they can’t stop screaming their pleair top0-. Everybody is seeing the coming death of life’s` standards and principles which the United States Declaration of Independence had proclaimed in 1776. The abolitionism’s movement for the rights of black people becomes more intense: the Montgomery bus boycott, the bombed Jr`s home, the confusing situation with Autherine Lucy` s attendance the University of Alabama. [3] Also, according to this source, this University was in the thick of the events and Harper Lee was not only its student but also the editor of the politically satirical student newspaper. So to say, she was in the centre of all events. Probably, being the witness of those events provoked her to tell the truth to the world after all, to express her point of view, to depict what is right and what is wrong to people. Unfortunately, they sometimes tend to forget the simple gospel truth: do not kill! Harper Lee’s only but, actually very successful first book was published in 1960. It won the Pulitzer Prize and in 1962 was adapted as the film named `To Kill a Mockingbird`. So, what was the secret of its success? What made it so special? This novel points at many problematic issues of American’s life of that time: the faults of the educational system, the imperfection of the judicial system and of course the national question is touched upon. The first issue is clearly noticeable through the Scout’s experience at school, when she discovers that she knows too much due to her father, Atticus, and her housekeeper, Calpurnia. The strange thing is that her teacher thinks it’s a mistake to give too much knowledge beforehand for a child, so she asks Scout to forget all she knew. At the same time, the writer makes the speech through the main character of the book concerning the American court: ` The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash. ` [4] As for the national issue, it goes without saying, it is practically one of the main question of the novel. Well, it also worth to mention, the novel can be regarded as the guide-book for young man and young ladies. The book turns to the issue of feminism (Scout) and the process of growing up from a small boy into the real man (Jem). This book teaches a life’s wisdom. On its pages we see the kill for pleasure, as an act of people that think the power and some prejudices are basis in our life. And the kill because of the need (as it actually should be, only in a need) –Atticus kills a rabid dog. And we understand that one shouldn’t judge upon the outside look of the person: Calpurnia who teaches children to be tolerant, well-bred and some script though she is a black woman. Tom Robinson is not guilty still the jury believed the opposite and at last Boo Radley, a prisoner in his own home because of his father’s cruel mistake. These people have innocent souls and kind hearts but the society sentenced them and made them fools which are, according to the society’s hierarchy, hard to say, a trash. A reader sense that the key message of the novel is: hey, people, that’s a big mistake, it shouldn’t be so! Everyone is equal and `one law shall be to him that is homeborn, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you`[5]. The Bible wasn’t mentioned accidentally as after reading the novel «To Kill a Mockingbird» I felt like I have read the adapted version of the great Book. It teaches the moral conduction, opens eyes at many hidden facts, makes you kinder and, by the way, describes that classic biblical situation when all people were against a warm-hearted, sincere and kind man and there was only one light creature who was for him– the God. Atticus failed the case, but later we see another situation when the innocent is saved - Boo Radley. That’s the ray of hope! The new generation (Scout, Jen and Dill) will make the right decision. As it was Scout who told that it would be like to kill a mockingbird if they give Boo to the representatives of the police. It would be like a sin.

The book was published in the right time when the American nation was going to be divided into two arringway.sonwarring camps: for and against the Civil Rights Law[6]. People needed someone to point them what is right or what is wrong. Many people confessed later that this novel had made them kinder and more understanding, more tolerant to other people after its reading. Subsequently, the Civil Rights Law of 1964 was passed, not accidental, judging from all above. The first step was made by John F. Kennedy [7] but the key step was made of course by Martin Luther King, who had been struggling for it up to the end, happy end, for every person.

Eventually, `To Kill a Mockingbird` is the book that can teach over centuries and surely can be considered as the guide-book for people, especially in their early ages. It clarifies a lot of things, gives the light for a soul and thus influences on you like every good book should.

[1] Martin Luther King, I have a Dream, paragraph 15, http://www.usconstitution.net/dream.html

[2] Martin Luther King, I have a Dream, paragraph 15, http://www.usconstitution.net/dream.html

[3] No author identified, The Civil Rights Era, http://resources.mhs.vic.edu.au/mockingbird/civil.htm

[4] Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, 50th Anniversary Edition, (New York:HarperCollins Publishers, 1993) Atticus Finch, Ch. 23, p.364.

[5] The Bible, (Ex. 12:49).

[6] No author identified, The Civil Rights Era, paragraph 3, http://resources.mhs.vic.edu.au/mockingbird/civil.htm

[7] Civil Rights Act of 1964, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

Дата добавления: 2015-10-29