To celebrate a mockingbird

Unassuming yet timeless, Harper Lee’s powerful work celebrates its 50th anniversary.

What is it about To Kill a Mockingbird that is driving excited fans to celebrate its half-century with courtroom-scene re-enactments and book readings around the world? The book, in Lee’s own words, was “a simple love story”. But its universal appeal lies in the various human truths it reiterates, celebrating childhood, compassion and the courage of one’s convictions. In critiquing the educational system, exposing society’s inherent double standards, depicting the denial of justice, and ending with a sense of closure, Lee’s book tenderly touches every human sensibility, making the book a pleasure to read and re-read.

 

Set in 1930s small-town Alabama, the book traces the growing up of the narrator, five-year-old Scout and her nine-year-old brother Jem. Their father, lawyer Atticus Finch, the original “cool dad”, brings up these motherless children like adults, appealing to their reason rather than fear when disciplining them, even allowing them to call him by his name!

But this is a time when children are to be seen and not heard, and Maycomb County disapproves of his approach. Indulgent disapproval hardens into insult and criticism when Atticus defends a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. Branded “nigger-lovers”, Jem and Scout are forced to grow up very suddenly. As their seemingly peaceful world reveals its racist underbelly, the children learn that it takes non-violent courage to support what is right, even if they don’t always understand it.

Courage. To me, that is what defines the book. Early on, in a veiled reference to F D Roosevelt’s coming to power as president of the USA (1932), Scout says “Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself.” This exhortation to bravery sets the tone for the novel. Juxtaposed against the false bravado of Jem, Scout, and their partner-in-crime Dill as they try to draw out the reclusive Boo Radley (rumored to be violent and insane) is the true, grown-up courage embodied by Atticus Finch. When he chooses to fight a losing battle for Tom Robinson and his children don’t understand why, he explains, “Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.”

Central to the story is the courage with which Atticus holds on to his principles. In today’s complex world, where aggression is often mistaken for bravery, we need to be more courageous than ever. Yet, in a world which still values “fitting in”, it’s somehow easier not to stick one’s neck out. And that is where Atticus stands, head and shoulders above the rest. Our unlikely hero is a bookish widower in his mid-50s, with a near-blind left eye and thick glasses. And yet, in standing up for the truth, he carves a permanent space in our hearts, as we adore and admire him, always knowing we may not have it in us to be him.