To Kill A Mocking Bird

It is international women’s day today (8^th of March), the whole world is celebrating it. The day is not meant just to convey your wishes or gift something to women but it’s all about reminding everyone to treat the woman kind well without any discrimination. Today’s post is not directly related the special day. But still it could be linked somehow as I’m going to talk about a novel which I completed reading a day back, written by the “Pulitzer prize” winning novelist Nelle Harper Lee, one of the most Victorious women, who has won many awards and honorary degrees including “Presidential medal of freedom” for her very first and the same novel what I’m referring to “To Kill a Mocking Bird”.

It is one the great books I’ve ever read, lets you grab some wisdom thoughts and life morals. And it varies quite a bit from any typical novel as it not just gives you pleasure while reading but teaches you, guides you, it purifies your thoughts towards fellow human beings and moreover it gives you an enduring impact. Persecution is an incurable disease from which the whole world has been suffering all along the way, where people are discriminated by gender, race, religion and skin-color, to name a few. This novel is also talking about one kind of discrimination, the ill-treatment of black people. Atticus Finch, the protagonist of the novel, plays a great role model. First and foremost, I would like to say that I’m writing whatever surfaces in my mind regarding the read and it does not need to be a typical review.

Scout, 7 years old little girl (at the start of the story), the narrator of the story and the daughter of the novel hero Atticus Finch, plays a “Tomboy” character. As per Wikipedia, “Scout” character is none other than the Author “Nelle Harper Lee” herself and it’s almost an autobiography, though Nelle Lee has denied that. The “Tomboy” scout plays a vital role in making the novel a hit, I would say. Let me share a few things proving that from the novel. (Jem is Scout’s brother 4 years older than her.)

“His maddening superiority was unbearable these days. He didn’t want to do anything but read and go off by himself. Still everything he read he passed along to me but with the difference: formerly because he thought I would like it; now for my edification and instruction

Jee crawling hova, Jem! Who do you think you are?

Now I mean it Scout you antagonize aunty and I’ll- I’ll spank you.

With that I was gone. “You damn morphodite. I’ll kill you. “He was sitting on the bed and it was easy to grab his front hair and land one on his mouth. He slapped me and I tried another left, but a punch in the stomach sent me sprawling on the floor. It nearly knocked the breathe out of me, but It didn’t because I knew he was fighting, he was fighting me back. We were still equals.

“Ain’t so high and might now are you! “ I screamed, sailing in again. He was still on the bed and I couldn’t get a firm stance, so I threw myself at him as hard as I could, hitting, pulling, pinching, gouging. What had begun as a fist fight became a brawl. We were still struggling when Atticus separated us.

“That’s all.” Said atticus.”Both of you go to bed right now”

“Who started it?” asked Atticus in resignation.

“Jem did. He was trying to tell me what to do. I don’t have to mind him now. Do I?”

Atticus smiled “Let’s leave it at this. You mind Jem whenever he can make you. Fair enough?”

Even though the book is more about some serious social issues, flavors like humor and poetic expressions brilliantly placed by the author makes it an interesting read and that is where the great Novelist Harper Lee stands out, I reckon. Let me give you an example for the “poetic expression “even though it is there throughout the whole story.

“Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tried old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover harts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of live oak on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon after their three o’clock naps, and by night fall were like soft teacakes with frosting of sweating and sweet talcum”

“Dill was off again. Beautiful things floated around his dreamy head. He could read two books to my one. But he preferred the magic of his own inventions. He could add and subtract faster than lightening but he preferred his own twilight world, a world where babies slept, waiting to be gathered like morning lilies. He was slowly taking himself to sleep and taking me with him, but in the quietness of his foggy island there rose the faded image of gray house with sad brown doors.”

Well, let’s get into some lessons now.

Atticus Finch, as a lawyer, defended a Negro man-Tim Robinson that was accused of raping a white girl, disregarding the disapproval of fellow white citizens. And folks of his county call him a “Nigger-lover”.

Lesson 1: Respect the thoughts and views of others regardless of the fact that they align with ours.

“Scout” said Atticus “When summer comes you will have to keep your head about far worse things. It’s not fair for you and Jem, I know that, but sometimes we have to make the best of things and the way we conduct ourselves when chips are down…………………..  This case, Tom Robin’s case, is something that goes to the essence of Man’s conscience- Scout, I could not go to church and worship God if I didn’t try to help that man. ”

“Atticus, you must be wrong.”

“How’s that?”

“Well more folks seem to think they’re right and you are wrong…”

“They’re certainly entitled to think that, they are entitled to full respect for their opinions” said Atticus “But before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

Lesson 2: Ignore the nonsense talk. Fighting with a pig does not get you anywhere other than mud.

“Scout, simply by the nature of the work, every lawyer gets at least one in his lifetime that affects him personally. This one is mine I guess. You might hear some ugly talk about it at school but do one thing for me if you will: you just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let them get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change. It’s a good one even if it resists learning.”

Lesson 3:  "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

Lesson 4:  We are supposed to hate sins but not sinners. But I know how difficult it would be to achieve it. Sometimes it might seem quite impossible.

“One maniac and millions of Germans. Looked to me like they’d shut Hitler in a pen instead of letting him shut them up. There was something else wrong. I’d ask my father about it. I did and he could not possibly answer my question because he didn’t know the answer.”

“But it’s okay to hate the Hitler?”

“No. It’s not ok”.He said “it’s not ok to hate anybody”

In overall, it was a great read and in my point of view it’s a “MUST READ”.