To Kill a Mockingbird is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. It was instantly successful and has become a classic of modern American literature. The plot and characters are loosely based on the author's observations of her family and neighbors, as well as on an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936, when she was 10 years old.
The novel is renowned for its warmth and humor, despite dealing with serious issues of rape and racial inequality. The narrator's father, Atticus Finch, has served as a moral hero for many readers and as a model of integrity for lawyers. One critic explained the novel's impact by writing, "In the twentieth century, To Kill a Mockingbird is probably the most widely read book dealing with race in America, and its protagonist, Atticus Finch, the most enduring fictional image of racial heroism."[1]
As a Southern Gothic novel and a Bildungsroman, the primary themes of To Kill a Mockingbird involve racial injustice and the destruction of innocence. Scholars have noted that Lee also addresses issues of class, courage and compassion, and gender roles in the American Deep South. The book is widely taught in schools in English-speaking countries with lessons that emphasize tolerance and decry prejudice. Despite its themes, To Kill a Mockingbird has been subject to campaigns for removal from public classrooms. Often the book is challenged for its use of racial epithets, and writers have noticed that regardless of its popularity since its publication, some readers are displeased by the novel's treatment of black characters.
Lee's novel was initially reviewed by at least 30 newspapers and magazines, whose critics varied widely in their assessments. More recently, British librarians ranked the book ahead of the Bible as one "every adult should read before they die".[2] The book was adapted into an Oscar-winning film in 1962 by director Robert Mulligan, with a screenplay by Horton Foote. Since 1990, a play based on the novel has been performed annually in Harper Lee's hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. To date, it is Lee's only published novel, and although she continues to respond to the book's impact, she has refused any personal publicity for herself or the novel since 1964.
- Author Harper Lee
- Country United States
- Language English
- Publisher J. B. Lippincott & Co.
- Publication date July 11, 1960
- Media type Print (Hardback and Paperback)
- Pages 296 (first edition, hardback)
****梅崗城故事 -- 小女孩的「觀點」
1. Discuss Atticus’s parenting style. What is his relationship to his children like? How does he seek to instill conscience in them?
Atticus is a wise man, committed to justice and equality, and his parenting style is based on fostering these virtues in his children—he even encourages Jem and Scout to call him “Atticus” so that they can interact on terms as equal as possible. Throughout the novel, Atticus works to develop Scout’s and Jem’s respective consciences, through both teaching, as when he tells Scout to put herself in a person’s shoes before she judges them, and example, as when he takes Tom Robinson’s case, living up to his own moral standards despite the harsh consequences he knows he will face. Atticus is a kind and loving father, reading to his children and offering them comfort when they need it, but he is also capable of teaching them harsh lessons, as when he allows Jem to come with him to tell Helen Robinson about Tom’s death. At the end of the novel, when Atticus believes that Jem killed Bob Ewell, he tries to talk Heck Tate, the sheriff, out of calling the death an accident—Atticus’s standards are firm, and he does not want his son to have unfair protection from the law.
2. Analyze the trial scene and its relationship to the rest of the novel.
To Kill a Mockingbird explores the questions of innocence and harsh experience, good and evil, from several different angles. Tom Robinson’s trial explores these ideas by examining the evil of racial prejudice, its ability to poison an otherwise admirable Southern town and destroy an innocent man, and its effect on young Jem and Scout. Because the point of a trial is to discover guilt or innocence, Tom’s trial serves as a useful mechanism for Lee to lay out the argument against racial prejudice in a dramatic framework suited to the larger themes of the novel. Additionally, because a trial is essentially about the presentation of facts, it serves as a laboratory in which the extent of the town’s prejudice can be objectively measured. Atticus presents a solid case that leaves virtually no room for doubt: Tom Robinson is innocent, and if he is found guilty, then it is only because of the jury’s racism. When Tom is found guilty, the outcome of the trial presents a crisis of confidence, particularly for Jem: if the law fails, then how can one have faith in justice, and if the people of Maycomb fail, then how can one have faith in the goodness of humanity? Although these questions are explored to some degree before the trial, they dominate the novel after the trial. From a structural point of view, the trial serves to bring the narrative’s main issues into focus.
3. Discuss the author’s portrayal of the black community and the characters of Calpurnia and Tom Robinson. Are they realistic or idealized?
The black community in Maycomb is quite idealized, especially in the scenes at the black church and in the “colored balcony” during the trial. Lee’s portrayal of the black community isn’t unrealistic or unbelievable; it is important to point out, however, that she emphasizes all of the good qualities of the community without ever pointing out any of the bad ones. The black community is shown to be loving, affectionate, welcoming, pious, honest, hardworking, close-knit, and forthright. Calpurnia and Tom, members of this community, possess remarkable dignity and moral courage. But the idealization of the black community serves an important purpose in the novel, heightening the contrast between victims and victimizers. The town’s black citizens are the novel’s victims, oppressed by white prejudice and forced to live in an environment where the mere word of a man like Bob Ewell can doom them to life in prison, or even execution, with no other evidence. By presenting the blacks of Maycomb as virtuous victims—good people made to suffer—Lee makes her moral condemnation of prejudice direct, emphatic, and explicit.
主題
- 人生的善惡問題。善良與罪惡並存，因而應該欣賞他人美德並以同情態度從他人的視角看待生活來理解他人的罪惡。
- 罪惡威脅著無辜者。
- 同情與理解在良知發展中的作用。
- 兒童與知識和道德上的教育。最重要的是教育他們具同情和理解之心，而同情和理解的方式是教育的最佳途徑。
- 種族歧視與社會等級的虛偽。
- 從童年向成年的過渡問題。人活著不泯滅良知而又不喪失希望、不憤世疾俗是可能的。
象徵
- 模仿鳥（Mockingbird）在字面上與情節沒什麼聯繫，但在小說中具有強大象徵性。它代表了天真無辜者。而「梅岡城故事」的故事就是一個罪惡毀滅天真無辜者的故事。小說中的傑姆（Jem）、湯姆·魯賓森（Tom Robinson）、迪爾（Dill）、布（Boo）、雷蒙德先生（Mr. Raymoud）、梅耶拉·艾薇（Mayella Ewell）都是「模仿鳥」。
- 布·芮德（Boo Radley）「布」在小說中很少露面，但孩子們對「布」的態度的變化是衡量孩子們從童年的天真發展為具有承認的道德觀的重要尺度。開始時被殘暴的父親摧毀而足不出戶的「布」在孩子們眼中代表了惡魔的恐怖，而隨著「布」不斷向孩子們贈送小禮物，為傑姆縫補了褲子，他在孩子們眼中的形象也逐漸真實起來。到小說最後，「布」從鮑伯·艾薇手中救出了思葛和傑姆時，在思葛眼裡，「布」已由一個鬼魂變成了一個人。「布」象徵了人類的高貴善良品質，儘管曾經受傷害，但內心的純潔善良貫穿於他整個生命。
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