To Kill a Mockingbird.
Written by Harper Lee and the winner of Pulitzer Prize.
To kill a mocking bird is a story about a young girl’s experience of the world. The book portrays the world as seen by the innocent minds of Scout and her elder brother Jem. A world of hatred, hypocrisy and inequality.
The book is special in the sense that it manages to bring the essence of childlike innocence to very serious topics such racial inequality in the united states. The whole premise of the book is how children, born with pure hearts, find the acts of the adult world, queer and even downright insane. It highlights the fact that, as we grow older we tend to lose our innocence and get corrupt by the myriad of experiences of the adult world.
The strength of the book lies in the fact that it brings childlike curiosity to the things that people take for granted. For example, little scout asks her father about the things that trouble her, things she heard at school or the neighborhood. For example, she asks her father why is it okay to hate Hitler when he mistreated Jews but okay for Miss Gates (her third grade teacher) to say that blacks needed to be taught a lesson, to make ’em learn their place, effectively mistreating blacks because of the color of their skins. Such questions, while being asked by a child, carry immense depth. It challenges the notions of the adult world, it challenges the status quo, it challenges our beliefs of what is right, how should things work. It forces us to explain our seemingly common acts with reason, which we, as adults fail to do so quite often.
Hence, the childlike innocence is the element of the book that makes it so special and impactful. The way Attrius (Scout’s father), struggles to answer her seemingly childlike questions speaks volumes about the way we, as people do irrational things. Her father, tells her and Jem; “had there been children in the jury, instead of men whose eyes are blinded by their prejudice, a black man could have a chance of justice, else he is guilty the moment he is convicted.” This line form the book personally touched me the most, for we adults lose the ability to step in one’s shoes, we slowly become void of empathy, the same empathy that is the unique to humans. In essence, we cease to become human, we become dead in our hearts as we grow old. In the context of the book, the jury, while knowing the man’s innocence, decides to label a black man guilty of the crimes he did not commit. This outrages Jem and Scout, who as children are not yet corrupted by willful ignorance, but is casually accepted the adults in the courthouse, who are corrupt beyond repair by the society and it’s irrational norms which poison one’s mind to see differences in that, which is the same.
So in conclusion, this is a special book. The way the author manages tell the story through the perspective of a child makes the story funny, insightful and deeply impactful. I can only imagine how she managed to bring the innocence of children so gracefully to the story she wrote, it is quite an remarkable feat. With that being said, this is an awfully good book that one must not miss out on.
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