“To kill a mocking bird” is a novel by American author Harper Lee. It was first published in 1960 and won Pulitzer Prize for literature. Despite being White herself, Lee was frustrated over the issues of racial bias and injustice done with Black Americans after the great depression. The unequal treatment with Blacks in the American society of that particular time is the most evident theme of this novel, for which Lee even received Presidential Medal of Freedom. Courage, compatibilities, and friendships amongst the family and community members are also some of themes of the novel. As the book covers themes which talk about tolerance and patience amongst different members of the society, it has been taught in schools on a large scale so as to develop these attributes in young generation and to avoid such incidents in today’s society. The novel also has some autobiographical elements since the most prominent incident of the novel which is wrong accusation of a black man for the rape of a White American woman is closely related to what happened in Lee’s neighborhood when she was young. Also, the protagonist character of lawyer Atticus Finch was inspired by Lee’s own father. Therefore, the novel has powerful impacts still after 50 years of its publication and is acclaimed on a high scale.
Since the most important and discussed theme of the novel is about racial inequality and injustice, it is important to analyze this one in the context of quotations and explanations from the novel. This theme runs parallel from the title itself, i.e., it is not good to kill a mocking bird who never does harm to anyone and just sings from tree to tree. Just like a mocking bird, it is unjust to accuse and kill some innocent human just because he/she does not belong to superior community and deserve to receive any kind of punishment. This was the similarity given by lawyer and main character of the novel Atticus Finch who, despite by White himself, try to defend a Black man named Tom Robinson. Tom was wrongly accused of being involved in the rape of a white woman named Mayella Ewell. He was a nice and kind man to the people of town, and he was never involved in any harmful activity towards them. However, the hatred for blacks amongst the white community of Maycomb was of so much extent that they entitled Atticus as a ‘nigger lover’ of Tom and other blacks when he tried to defend Tom on his behalf.
Initially, it was expected by Atticus that once he prove the innocence of Tom regarding the case, he will be freed by the court and will be provided with justice. Therefore, he was of the view that “Our courts have their faults, as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal” (Lee, 1960). However, even when he proved Tom’s innocence over the issue that he was not involved in any rape activity and that he was wrongly blamed just because he was a Black, the court showed a high level of prejudice and refused to declare him as innocent. The sole reason of doing so was that no Black can be given priority over a white and if a white woman is saying that she was raped by a black, the accused certainly deserves punishment. It would be right to argue that due to severe colonialism over the Africans, Blacks are imagined and considered to be immoral, illiterates, inhumane, hypersexual and evil. All such definitions of blacks were based on false assumptions and propositions so as to suppress them against Whites. That is why Blacks always remain inferior and they can never attain a good social (Foucault, 1978).
This novel is a clear depiction of the racial issues and bias amongst the American society of that particular time, which shows the concept of “otherness” amongst Whites. Since they made their colonies over Blacks, they consider them non-whites and ‘others’, treated harsh with them and forced them to consider themselves the inferior ones. Along with otherness and colonialism, West imagined and introduced the concept of Orientilism, according to which they are the most superior and all other nations; and those who were colonized are inspired from their knowledge and their modes of living (Said, 1979). Being a white is supposed to be of supremacy and extreme adequacy, thus they introduce and fantasize such concepts by which they can force themselves over other people. Blacks were initially slaves of them, and even when they start living with them in the same society, they were never treated equally. Whites used science and techniques to rule over them and consider them to be established by scientific evidences, thus they made even science a racial biased thing. Hence there always remain a racial unbalanced hierarchy between blacks and whites (Dyer 1997). Black men were considered of extreme masculinity which repelled white community as they do not admire lethal structures. They were only associated with sex and it was commonly spread that they do nothing but sexual abuses and rapes and fail to accommodate themselves in a proper civilization.
Thus they remain dysfunctional and were thought to be a mindless thing with only bodies what they have all (Mercer 1994).
As soon as Atticus realized this mentality of the jury, he become aware that Tom was not going to have justice with this court, as depicted by his sentence, “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” (Lee, 1960). He tried hard to defend him, with his utmost courage and determination, but ultimately failed against the biased jury who cannot let down a White for a Black. Thus the novel carefully describes one of the biggest social issues of American society, which is prevalent even today and must be addressed appropriately in order to rescue racial injustice and ethnic disputes.
Works Cited
Dyer, Richard. White. London: Routledge, 1997. Print.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. Print.
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1960. Print.
Mercer, Kobena. Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies. New York: Routledge, 1994. Print.
Milton, Joyce. Harper Lee's to Kill a Mockingbird. Woodbury, N.Y: Barron's, 1984. Print.
Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1979. Print.
