Recommended Reading
To Kill A Mocking Bird - Teachers’ notes
This is a teacher’s guide I wrote for an educational chart on the book. Although the pictures are not reproduced here, the guide gives pupils tips and ideas of the themes and questions which always come up and helps them to read more deeply into the book.
Introduction
To Kill A Mocking Bird is about conflicts, ignorance and prejudice. Harper Lee chose to examine these themes by telling an exciting, touching and memorable story. She created a large number of vividly realised, true-to-life characters all of whom have their own stories in the book and all of whom contribute to the mix of Maycomb society. The story is told by Scout who is ‘almost six’ when it begins and the book, throughout, contrasts the innocent ignorance of Scout’s questioning approach to people and events with the unquestioning and culpable ignorance and attitudes of much of Maycomb society. This guide concentrates on the descriptive qualities of the book. Most other study aids, understandably, focus more on questions of prejudice, poverty and class divisions. It is the purpose of this chart and guide to look at how Harper Lee brought these important issues to such vigorous and memorable life.
Much of the book’s success is due to the vivid and detailed picture Harper Lee gives us of Maycomb and its way of life. She wrote from her own first-hand knowledge, having been born in 1926 in Monroeville, the model for Maycomb, in Alabama - a town of only 7,000 people. She was the youngest of the four children of her lawyer father and her mother who was called Frances Finch. As a young child in the troubled 1930s, she was increasingly aware of the social background to her own life. In particular, the great Depression of the late 1920s and 1930s, the racial tensions between the black and white communities and, later, a growing sense of an overwhelming menace from Hitler’s Germany, all contribute to the world of her book.
She was 5 years old when the notorious Scottsboro trial began nearby. Two white women accused nine black men of rape but, despite medical evidence in their favour, all the men, save one twelve-year-old, were sentenced to death. After six years of appeals and trials, the men were eventually freed. The culture that gave rise to this terrible saga also gave rise to the only novel Harper Lee was to write.
Suggested approaches
Lee’s clear-sighted portrayal of Maycomb and its inhabitants is full of visual details and descriptions. The chart shows a few of the images which create this sense of place and people but, of course, the book has many such images on every page. Lee is good at climbing into the skin of her characters and walking around in it and an interesting task might be to compile a list of the physical features or idiosyncrasies of individuals eg Mrs Dubose’s dribbling and her insulting language, Calpurnia’s squint and her capacity for two separate languages, Miss Maudie’s manner of speech, her gold bridgework and passion for growing things, Judge Taylor’s cigar etc.
It should be noted that part of the effectiveness of the Boo Radley thread in the story is that Boo is, for all but the last four chapters, unseen and invisible. In a story in which the other characters are so colourfully portrayed, it is this very invisibility which so fascinates both the children and readers. Boo’s eventual appearance - white and colourless as he is - is all the more appropriate in this context.
Another helpful exercise might be to look at the different ways people talk to each other in the book. Atticus clearly has an elegance and formality of language that distinguishes him but everyone has their own manner of speaking and this helps to identify them in our minds. For example, in the courtroom, there is a stark contrast between Tom Robinson and Bob and Mayella Ewell in the awareness they show of appropriate language and behaviour. ‘It occurred to me’, remarks Scout, ‘ that in their own way, Tom Robinson’s manners were as good as Atticus’s.’ Bob Ewell, on the other hand, uses slang and blasphemy and Mayella is bemused and threatened by Atticus’s politeness. ‘I wondered if anybody had ever called her ma’am or Miss Mayella in her life; probably not as she took offence at routine courtesy. What on earth was her life like?’ wonders Scout.
The Chart – the chart had a number of illustrations which are not reproduced here but should be obvious from the notes.
1. Mockingbird
The actual appearance of the mocking bird matters far less than what is said about it and its symbolic value. Much useful work could be done on ideas to do with innocence and ignorance, enjoyment of different kinds, social responsibility and the moral backbone of the story provided by Atticus and Miss Maudie and what they say about the bird. The obvious contrast between the dangerous mad dog which Atticus has a social responsibility to shoot and the harmless, blameless and entertaining mocking bird is fundamental to the whole story.
2 and 3. FDR and the food queue
The book includes several references to ‘the crash’ in the US economy and its effects on the population. In chapter twelve, Scout says, ‘bread lines in the cities grew longer, people in the country grew poorer’. When Scout asks Atticus whether they are poor, he explains, in chapter two, the financial interdependence of the farming and professional people. There are graphic examples of the effects of poverty and ways of combating poverty throughout the book as exemplified by eg the Cunninghams, the Ewells, the black community. How do these people earn their money and on what do they spend it? What is the relationship of work to money in their lives?
4. Smart house
This is a typical Maycomb house. Its most important and universal feature is the porch. Such houses also had back porches - useful for less obvious social inter-action as when Scout notes that ‘Aunt Alexandra was a back-porch listener’. Even the Ewell house has a porch on which Mayella was doing ‘nothin’’ when Tom went past. The porch is the main stage for socialising, neighbour-watching, rest and refreshment for all the inhabitants. An interesting survey could be made of its importance in the narrative and atmosphere of the book. Houses have other significance, of course. The Radley house and Miss Maudie’s house have their own stories and, like the house of Mrs Dubose, are closely identified with their owners.
5. Black church
The name of this church is as important and as significant as its appearance and its uses. It suggests the importance to the black population of their religion, their sense of community, their own history and identity and of their pride. It is one of the few things they can be seen to own in a society which only very slowly accepted that slavery was finished. The last black slaves were freed only in 1865 - just within the memory of the oldest members of the Maycomb population. The children’s visit to the church as Calpurnia’s ‘comp’ny’ gives them - and us - an insight into and a familiarity with this community which is important for later on in the trial scene. The contrast between this building and the others in the book eg the courthouse, the white people’s houses, the Ewell place etc can all be explored.
6. Classroom
The early classroom scenes in the book are a good introduction to Maycomb society and Scout’s view of it. Her explanation of Walter’s not having any lunch - ’he’s a Cunningham’ - leads into a detailed account of the many-layered Maycomb social world. The contrast between Walter Cunningham and Burris Ewell is worth exploring. More obvious approaches to this picture are to look at the different ways in which boys and girls dress and how Scout’s clothes and manners are a source of concern for her aunt later in the book. Contrasts between this classroom and our own can also be explored.
7. Cotton picking
Cotton plantations - along with tobacco and rice growing - was one of the earliest form of farming in the US - begun in the mid-seventeenth century. The need for cheap labour on the plantations was largely responsible for the growth of the slave trade which brought 1,000s of black people in ships from Africa in terrible conditions. Five or six hundred men, women and children would be crammed into ships with no sanitary arrangements and little food. Many died on the voyage and were thrown overboard. Once they arrived, they were made to work, with no rights of any kind. Whereas some slave-owners took pride in their treatment of their slaves and even educated them to some degree, most were harsh and their treatment of the slaves was brutal. Families were separated, the working day was long under the punishing sun and living quarters were primitive. Even after emancipation in 1865, conditions were slow to improve, wages were low and resistance, especially in states like Alabama, to the idea of black people having civil rights, was very strong.
8. Scottsboro and 9. Hangings
Even after slaves were freed, black people could not be confident of justice. Often cases did not even get as far as the judicial system and people took the law into their own hands. Mob violence in the form of lynching and summary hanging persisted and few whites would be apprehended for these sorts of attacks if the victims were black and suspected of criminal acts. The history of the Scottsboro case was long and painful and involved years of trials and retrials before the defendants were finally cleared. A sense of a two-tier system of justice persisted in the US throughout much of the twentieth century especially in the Deep South, despite the huge advances of the black population throughout the country. As recently as June 2005, a white man was finally convicted of the manslaughter of three Mississippi (the neighbouring state to Alabama) black civil rights workers in 1964 after many years of campaigning to bring him to justice. This was a case involving the notoriously racist Ku Klux Klan, mentioned by Jem and Atticus in chapter fifteen.
10. Courthouse outside
This is the Monroeville courthouse. The Maycomb courthouse is central to the story. The trial episode occupies one fifth, or six chapters, of the book. It is like a theatre where we, like the people in the gallery, have an audience’s view of the main protagonists. ‘It was a gala occasion’, says Scout, with huge crowds gathering in the square and crowding into the courthouse. Almost as interesting as the main players in the trial are the people gathered to watch and comment, both inside and outside. They are a varied and colourful crowd and their presence and involvement make a powerful contrast to Tom Robinson’s isolation and the seriousness of his situation. The courthouse’s existence as the home of justice in the town and how it perceived in this respect by all the inhabitants could give rise to worthwhile discussions about the meaning of ‘justice’ depending on one’s point of view.
11. Courtroom
This is the inside of the courthouse. A useful exercise might be to reproduce the picture showing where all the significant characters would have been. Also, of course, a class dramatisation of the court scene is helped by the authenticity of this image. In particular, it is stimulating to consider who can see whom in this scene. Atticus, for example, until he gets up and walks around - a privilege only allowed to the lawyers in the case - cannot see who is in the gallery. Scout tells us that he repeatedly looks out of the window but ‘didn’t seem specially interested in what he saw’.
12. Map
In the nineteenth century, Alabama grew rich on the proceeds of the cotton plantations and, after the Civil War and emancipation, had a large black population with no means of support other than selling their labour. Poverty meant that many worked for very low wages indeed, many as servants for the better-off white families. Many white people also were very poor in the 1930s and their living conditions were often no better than those of the blacks. There was still little social contact between whites and blacks and, often, deep suspicion characterised race relations. This wasn’t helped by the fact the blacks, in general, were not allowed to vote, they were educated separately, had separate sections on buses and even park benches were labelled ‘Whites Only’. However, prejudice of this kind was not universal and by the 1930s many individuals, campaigners and families were working hard to make more socially cohesive and united communities.
Further suggestions
Harper Lee fills her book with memorable incidents, characters and descriptions - too numerous to exemplify here - however here are a few more suggestions for this visual approach to the novel.
1. Maycomb ‘ladies’ are a special breed. Aunt Alexandra is, to a great extent, typical while Miss Maudie is more of an individual, a sceptic, hence her friendship with Atticus. What characterises - in appearance, manners, opinions and attitudes a Maycomb lady?
2. There is a number of lesser characters deserving of attention because of, firstly, their individuality and secondly their role in the story. Miss Caroline, Heck Tate, Judge Taylor, Link Deas, Dolphus Raymond, Miss Stephanie Crawford, Reverend Sykes and Uncle Jack among others are all brought to life by Lee. Their views on either the trial or on Atticus’s role in it could be explored in dialogues or newspaper vox pops in the Maycomb Tribune.
3. We learn, incidentally, as the book proceeds, a great deal about the life of a child in 1930s small-town Alabama. This information could be gathered from the whole book to make autobiographical pieces eg Harper Lee (or Scout/Jem/Dill) looks back at her childhood in Maycomb or Contrast the lives of boys and girls in 1930s Maycomb. Similarly, a servant’s life or the life of a black working man or woman can be deduced from the information in the book and an account written.
4. The story is told by Scout and everything is seen through her eyes. It would make an interesting exercise to take key moments in the book and see them through, for example, the eyes of: Calpurnia, Aunt Alexandra, Miss Maudie, Helen Robinson, Dolphus Raymond, Braxton Underwood, Walter Cunningham, Mayella Ewell.
5. There are some strange names in the book, Atticus, for instance. The name means ‘from Athens’ - which Atticus Finch wasn’t - but it suggests that his parents valued the civilised qualities associated with Ancient Greece, especially the importance of law and the skills of oratory. Several other characters are named after great generals eg Robert E. Lee Ewell, Braxton Bragg Underwood, Mrs Henry Lafayette Dubose. What do the names of Lee’s characters tell us about them? The class could look at their real names eg Charles Baker Harris and their nicknames eg Dill, Boo (Arthur) Radley etc.
6. Perhaps the most vivid portrait in the book is of Maycomb itself and a way of life now all but vanished. What is attractive about it to us today? What is unattractive? The most searching work will be able to look beyond the most glaring aspects of racial and class divisions to find more detailed and subtle aspects such as the greater freedom children have to play outdoors than most children today, the awareness of local history and of one’s own family within it, the strength of community in both black and white populations, the wilful ignorance of those who cannot see beyond Tom’s colour and so on.
