To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel written by an acclaimed American writer Nelle HarperLee, who was born on 28 April 1926 in Alabama and died in 2016. Lee was the youngest of the four children of a lawyer father and a bipolar mother. The writer was known among her peers in the small town of Monroeville, where the Lee family lived as a tomboy. Less had always been interested in English literature and throughout her life, she was mocked for her fashion sense, lack of dating life, and being a loner.
The writer attended Huntington College and the University of
Alabama in pursuit of her writing career and served as the editor of the school
newspaper. Lee was selected for a law school but chose writing and dropped out
in the first semester to pursue her dream of writing (Karen Coats, 2008).
After the success of her novel, she chose to stay in Alabama and shied away
from any type of publicity although she continued to support and speak against the violation of human rights. Lee was a staunch defender of anyone weak. According
to Karen Coats (2008), she was a loving daughter and a friend who was always
ready to help anyone as she immortalized both her father and friend through her
novel.
Lee has often denied taking the responsibility of adding autobiographical elements in her novels, however, none can deny that To Kill a Mockingbird contains fictionalized biographical elements. The protagonist of the novel, Jean Louise Scout, resembles the author as she is the written incarnation of Lee in her tom-boyish ways and head-strong attitude (Bchir, 2016).
Scout, like Lee, does not like school as she has her dreams set otherwise and is gifted, the mediocre school curriculum bores her. Moreover, Scout is a liberal and open-minded person who challenges the stereotypes of society as did Lee, she has no regard for the bullies and mockers who abuse her appearance.
The author has portrayed the life of Jean from a child to an adult and showed the transition from immaturity to maturity similar to her own life (GRESSLER, 2019). Besides the protagonist, other characters in the novel have an uncanny resemblance to real people in Lee’s life. The father of Scout is an honest and amicable lawyer just like Lee’s father, Amasa Coleman Lee and both share the same attitude of seeing beyond the biases of race and discrimination and upholding morality always.
Scout's father defended an African-American man in the novel against a false charge of rape and his morals were transferred to his children, especially Scout. Similarly, Lee's father also saved two African Americans from false convictions although both the real and the fictional lawyers lost the cases yet they left strong ethical lessons for their daughters (Bchir, 2016). Besides these two main characters, Lee also portrayed the character of Dill based on her friend, Truman Capote.
He lives next door to her just as Dill lives next door to Scout in
the novel. Capote was the writing partner of Lee from childhood, both would
write stories on an old typewriter and it was on a mission with him that Lee
completed her novel (Peregrine, 2014). Even the Boo Radley was based on a
real-life family who lived down the street from Lee with a boarded-up house.
Similarly, Tom Robinson, the accused black man was inspired by several cases of
black men being falsely accused of raping white girls, Lee wanted to raise her
voice against racial discrimination through her novel.
To conclude, To Kill a Mockingbird is a book that depicts the cruel, immoral, biased, and flawed face of society. Lee had always been strong and brave, as her novel proves because she wrote it at the time when racial discrimination was at its height due to the Civil Rights Movement. Hence, not only Lee, but many readers of the novel could relate to Scout and the other characters in the novel.
The novel has contributed to eradicating the vices of racism and
highlighting the prejudice against black people. Harper Lee has depicted the
harsh realities of her time in this autobiographical masterpiece for which she
will always be praised.
