Friday, March 29, 2024 | Ramadan 18, 1445 H
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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

To Kill a Mocking Bird: ‘The book that should be read by every adult before they die’

Rasha-al-Raisi
Rasha-al-Raisi
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‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’ is one of those classics that is reader-friendly yet it’s multifaceted that makes you keep thinking about it by the time you’re done with it. Set in a fictional town called Maycomb in Alabama at the time of the great depression (1933-1935), the story is narrated by six-year-old Jean Louise Finch — nicknamed Scout — who lives with her father Atticus the lawyer, her older brother Jem and a black house helper Calpurnia.


The world of Scout is not different from any child of her age. She describes her day-to-day dealings at home and school, the awaited yearly visits of her friend Dill each summer and the curiosities she feels towards the adults surrounding her.


However, the children’s life changes when their father decides to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who’d been accused of raping a white woman. That’s when they discover and come to terms with living in an intolerant society where social class matters and racial equality doesn’t exist. Scout and Jem have to defend their dad and themselves on many occasions, which leads frequently to questioning their own beliefs that always collide with what others think, especially their family. Nevertheless, lessons learned from these experiences make them reflect and try to understand the complications and contradictions that comprise an adult life.


The mocking bird is a symbol of innocence that many characters lose throughout the book. Written by Harper Lee (1926-2016) and published in 1960, the novel is loosely based on her childhood in Alabama where her dad was also an attorney who defended two black men accused of murder. Scout’s friend Dill is also based on Lee’s childhood friend Truman Capote, who also shared a wide imagination and love of making up stories (as adults they would travel to Kansas to investigate multiple murders that become the basis of his well-known book In Cold Blood).


To Kill a Mocking Bird won the Pulitzer prize in 1961 and became a modern American classic that is still taught widely in schools. It was also linked to Civil Right Movements of the 1960s as it condemns racial injustice. Nevertheless, the novel is one of the most challenged books as its racial slur makes many readers uncomfortable.


At the time of its publication, the publisher wasn’t sure if the edited version would sell more than a few thousand copies. Instead, it was a success. It sold more than 30 million copies and was translated to more than 40 languages.


In 1999, it was voted as best novel of the century and chosen by the British librarians as “the book that should be read by every adult before they die”. The novel was made into a movie in 1962, starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. He won the Oscar for best actor for this role and Lee was so impressed by his performance that she gifted him her father’s pocket watch.


Being a private person, Harper Lee found it hard to cope with the book’s fame and declined interviews about it since 1964. She even refused to write an introduction for it as she thought it would: “inhibit pleasure, kill the joy of anticipation and frustrate curiosity”. A year before she dies, Lee published her second novel: Go Set a Watchman, a sequel to her first one and the original draft of it, where the main characters are adults. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Arts. To Kill a Mocking Bird is a compassionate classic and a memorable reading experience.


(Rasha al Raisi is a certified skills trainer and the author of: The World According to Bahja. rashabooks@yahoo.com)


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