TKAM reading response

‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is a coming of age story about Scout and Jem Finch, siblings growing up in the southern United States during the Great Depression. In the novel, Scout and Jem’s father Atticus works as a defence lawyer for Tom Robinson, a black man who is charged unjustly for the rape of a white girl. The book explores the unreasonable attitudes of the characters in their community and the beliefs that drove the society in which the book is set.

To Kill a Mockingbird is set in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama in the 1930’s. I started this book already knowing a little bit about the history surrounding this timeframe, and the segregation between white people and African Americans in the USA at this time. Reading as Tom Robinson was charged for a crime he did not commit, despite the lack of evidence presented by his accusers, frustrated me greatly. Despite the jury being presented with almost no evidence of Tom’s alleged actions, and the credible evidence against any accusations, the jury still convicted him. Atticus says in this part of the story “There’s something in our world that makes men lose their heads—they couldn’t be fair if they tried. In our courts, when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins. They’re ugly, but those are the facts of life.” Atticus is right. This truth is not just relevant for back in the 1930’s but also true for today’s society. Despite the progress we think has been made towards equality, we are still plagued by underlying prejudiced viewpoints that we can’t seem to shake. A white man’s word is indeed often taken more seriously than if a black man tried to contradict him. This is a horrendous fact and it should not be true, but it is. From reading To Kill a Mockingbird, I learned of how the power behind such prejudices can affect people so strongly and yet not even be realised by others. It made me realise how hard it is to break traditional views and how difficult it is to make real progress in a society – despite being set almost 100 years ago, many of the same views are still true for people today even if they are more hidden under the surface.

The text helped me to see how prejudiced we often are without realising it and how harmful these viewpoints can be. It angered me how not only were some of the characters in the book were so narrow minded and so disgustingly rude to other characters, but also how they truly believed they were doing the right thing. For example, Aunt Alexandra’s grandson Francis says to Jem and Scout “I guess it ain’t your fault if Uncle Atticus is a nigger-lover besides, but I’m here to tell you it certainly does mortify the rest of the family… Grandma says it’s bad enough he lets you all run wild, but now he’s turned out a nigger lover he’ll never be able to walk the streets of Maycomb again. He’s ruining the family, that’s what he’s doing.” I couldn’t believe that someone could actually say something horrible like this about other people, but more than that, the fact that Aunt Alexandra and the rest of the Finches were so caught up in image and social status that they could not see past it and see the truth. Their prejudiced opinions about African Americans meant that they thought Atticus was “mortifying” and disgracing the family name for working with a black man, despite the fact that Atticus was indeed doing the right thing by helping Tom even if it was straying from the conventional views of that time period. The Finches genuinely thought they were in the right – trying to “save” their family reputation from Atticus’s radical actions – but in reality they were so caught up in their racist mindset that they could not see the truth; Tom was an innocent man that no one else would defend. This to me showed the importance of challenging others and accepting criticism when people challenge your viewpoints. What one person believes is good, just and right could very well be the opposite, because prejudices of any type cause your vision to narrow whether you realise you have them or not. What some people think is the right thing to do may actually be incorrect – it is important to question your opinions and accept opposition and challenge from others.

The book caused me to think about the prejudices I may have without realising it and this worried me – if these characters genuinely thought they were doing the right thing, then I could possibly be exactly the same. “To Kill a Mockingbird” was written 60 years ago, so the book isn’t ancient. The racist, sexist, prejudiced viewpoints of the characters in Maycomb were considered normal and expected for that time period – if you strayed from those views like Atticus did, then you were considered to be out of your mind and were far less respected in society. The world that we live in has improved from this level of obvious racism and hatred, but it still exists under the surface. For example, there have been many cases recently of unarmed black men being fatally shot by white police officers despite not committing any crime. Almost certainly would this not have happened if both people involved were white. This happened in the case of Stephon Clark, who turned out to be only holding a cellphone and yet was shot 7 times by police, who then did not face any criminal charges. This then got me wondering about how much progress will have been made towards true equality in the next 60 or 100 years – or whether true equality is even possible. Maybe these prejudices will lie under the surface forever.

A different event in the book that surprised me was when Arthur “Boo” Radley came and saved Jem and Scout from an attack from Bob Ewell. Scout realised that Boo was in fact not at all like the squirrel eating, scary monster that she believed him to be because of the stories and rumours that she had heard from other people. Scout says to Atticus ‘he was real nice’, and Atticus replies with ‘Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.’ This ties to the theme of racism in the book in why it is so important to accept challenge of your opinions. Scout believed all these bad, untrue things about Boo, but when confronted with a very different image to what she had had her whole life, she readily accepted it and decided Boo was “real nice”. This is why I believe Harper Lee used Scout as a narrator of the story – childlike, innocent mindsets are so much more open to criticism and opposition than adults are and I believe this portrays these themes a whole lot more effectively. Scout, when she let go of her preconceived ideas and accepted the truth, found that the viewpoints she had initially were just as harmful for her as they were for Boo – by accepting she was wrong, Scout was freed from the fear that she had about Boo which turned out to be ridiculous and untrue.

Something I have learned from To Kill a Mockingbird is the importance of attitude. Sometimes I find myself facing facts that don’t line up with beliefs I already had, and I believe this kind of challenge is needed to make you think hard about why you believe something or why you think a certain way about something or someone. Often people can be so set in their ways and their preconceived ideas that they will ignore any evidence against it – like what happened at Tom’s trial in the book and also with the Finch family trying to keep their reputation intact. Instead of changing what they believe, people will latch onto the possibility that they were in fact in the right. Is this because of pride? Fear? Stubbornness? Like Atticus says, “People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for.” This message is so true and so important to acknowledge. I believe we all need to be a bit more like Scout – willing to accept when we are wrong – and then we will all be able to see truth and will all be freed from the constraints that we put on ourselves.