To Kill a Mockingbird By Harper Lee

OVERVIEW OF THE NOVEL AUTHOR: Harper Lee PUBLICATION DATE: 1960 SETTING: Maycomb, Alabama 1933-1935 POINT OF VIEW: First person narrative THEMES: maturity, loss, repression, isolation, discovery, justice, neighborliness, ridicule, character, respect, courage, and tolerance

The Mockingbird Most famed for its vocal imitations. The most widely-known songbird in America Can it perform 39 species' songs and 50 call notes Can mimic sounds An electronic analysis could not tell the difference between the mockingbird and the original. They feed on insects and fruit. Remember this? Mockingjay is based off of a Mockingbird.

HARPER LEE (The author) (Nellie) Harper Lee BORN: April 28, 1926 PLACE OF BIRTH: Monroeville, Alabama PARENTS: Amasa C. and Frances (Finch) Lee Related to Robert E. Lee Still alive – age 89 This is the only book she ever published until the summer of 2015 when Go Set A Watchman was released under much controversy.

TKAM - GSAW Harper Lee never wrote another book after TKAM was published. She has made millions of dollars from this book. She was offered millions of dollars several times to write a follow up to To Kill A Mockingbird, but she always refused. Controversy brewed in 2015 when it was announced that a follow up entitled Go Set A Watchman (GSAW) would be released in July 2015. Lee was age 88 and in poor health. Over 1.1 million copies were sold in one week when it was released, breaking sales records. GSAW is not really a “new” novel, it is the rough draft of TKAM and has many flaws which raised eyebrows about Lee or her father being racist.

TKAM AWARDS  In 1961, it won a Pulitzer Prize, and in 1962, it was made into an Academy Award-winning film. It has never gone out of print. Paperback of the Year Award Book-of-the-Month Club Most influential book, next to the Bible

AUTHOR’S LINKS TO THE NOVEL’S PLOT AND CHARACTERS Through many aspects of TKAM, there are multiple connections to Harper Lee’s life. Check out these examples: The courtroom in Maycomb is patterned after the one in Monroeville where Harper Lee observed her father in courtroom proceedings. Tom Robinson’s trial appears to be a composite of many trials in the South, specifically the Scottsboro trials. Some of the novel’s characters are composites of people Harper Lee knew personally; for example, the author Truman Capote as Dill.

Jean Louise Finch “Scout” Adult narrator as story begins Relates events that begin when she is 6 years old. Older brother Jem Father is Atticus Mother passed away when she was very young. So young she has a hard time remembering anything about her Major tomboy Struggling through growing up and understanding the world around her Author Connections: Harper Lee’s age (6 to 8) correlates with Scout’s age during 1933-1935, the time period of the book.

Atticus Finch Father to Scout and her older brother, Jem. (Scout is our narrator) Well-known lawyer in town Widower – wife and mother of Jem and Scout passed away when Scout was younger Seen as a upstanding man in the community Kind of the strong but silent type (don’t confuse his silence for not having anything to say – very wise man) Throughout the novel, he offers life advice as Scout struggles through growing up Author Connection: Harper Lee’s father was a Southern lawyer. He served as the prototype for Atticus Finch.

More characters JEM FINCH – Scout’s brother, who is 4 years older than she. Remembers their mother and struggles with his grief sometimes. Story starts off with Scout mentioning how Jem breaking his arm and then she decides she needs to start from the very beginning (2 years earlier)…the story ends with how he broke his arm. 2) CHARLES BAKER “DILL” HARRIS – 7-year-old visitor to Maycomb; based off a childhood friend of Harper Lee 3) ARTHUR “BOO” RADLEY – neighborhood recluse 4) CALPURNIA – the black housekeeper for the Finch family 5) AUNT ALEXANDRA – Scout & Jem’s aunt (sister to their father, Atticus) 6) MAUDE ATKINSON – friend of Finch family

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MORE CHARACTERS 7) TOM ROBINSON – black man accused of raping a white girl 8) MAYELLA EWELL – the girl who accuses Tom of rape. Very low class lady from a low class family. Lots of kids but no mother, she passed away many years ago. 9) BOB EWELL – Mayella’s father. His wife had also passed away. Drunk most of the time and used all their money on booze. 10) HECK TATE – sheriff of Maycomb

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ATTICUS Justice BOB EWELL Innocence JEM SCOUT DILL Bigotry Or Prejudice CHARACTERS AS SYMBOLS CALPURNIA & MAUDIE TOM ROBINSON & BOO Helpfulness Helplessness

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER What was America like during the setting of the story? What is the significance of the title with regards to the plot and symbolism? What experiences and people did Harper Lee rely on in order to develop her plot and characters? Is there still prejudice in America today?

Interesting Connection Dill is fashioned after the real life author and friend of Harper Lee, Truman Capote. Capote was a Hollywood fixture and author of the best selling book In Cold Blood.

In Cold Blood The Harper Lee Connection In Cold Blood is a non-fiction book first published in 1966, written by American author Truman Capote; it details the 1959 murders of Herbert Clutter, a farmer from Holcomb, Kansas, his wife, and two of their four children. When Capote learned of the quadruple murder, before the killers were captured, he decided to travel to Kansas and write about the crime. He was accompanied by his childhood friend and fellow author Harper Lee, and together they interviewed local residents and investigators assigned to the case and took thousands of pages of notes. The killers, Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, were arrested six weeks after the murders, and Capote ultimately spent six years working on the book. The book is the second biggest selling true crime book in publishing history, behind Vincent Bugliosi's 1974 book Helter Skelter on the Manson murders.