To Kill a Mockingbird – in General

Synopsis

In the 1930s, in Maycomb , county of Alabama , Atticus Finch, attorney right and honest, a single parent with two children , Jean Louise (Scout) and Jeremy (Jem) in the heart of the American southern racist full of prejudices . Scout is the narrator. Jem and Scout became friends with Dill, a boy who stays with his aunt during the summer. The three children are terrified and fascinated by their neighbor Arthur (Boo) Radley recluse who lives at home. Children imagine the look and the reasons why Boo to stay home and try to get him out of his house. Scout and Jem find gifts in the tree in front of the Radley house.

Atticus is appointed by the court in defense of a black named Tom Robinson accused of raping a white woman, Mayella Ewell, testifying against him in court , and his father Bob Ewell. After this trial in which Atticus Finch questions the guilt of Tom and questioned Bob about his daughter’s injuries, he is unjustly decided that Tom is guilty. He is convicted and jailed after the verdict. Tom is desperately trying to escape during a walk, caught by his guards he was shot.

After the trial , Bob shows a crazy rage. It threatens Atticus, harassing the widow of Tom and enters the garden of Judge Taylor. On the evening of Halloween , in total darkness, when Jem and Scout go home after the party given to high school , he assaulted the two children helpless, thirteen and eight. Jem is injured and loses consciousness. It is then carried to his house, followed by Scout. Upon arriving home, Scout discovers that the person who brought Jem is none other than Boo Radley. After a site inspection of the aggression by the sheriff of Maycomb , Heck Tate, he reveals to Finch that the person who attacked Jem and Scout (previously unidentified) was Bob Ewell, and he was found dead at the point of attack . Atticus argues that Jem killed Bob certainly in self-defense , but the Heck is certainly convinced that Bob fell on his knife and is pressed into the body.

A magnificent speech of Atticus Finch on equal races appear in the book in chapter 20, pages 314-319, General French Library edition, coll. “The Pocket Book” No. 30617, Paris, 2006, 447 p. ( ISBN 978-2-253-11584-7 ).

Autobiographical elements 

Although the book is not an autobiography of Harper Lee, many of the novel characters and elements are directly inspired by Lee’s childhood.

Lee’s father, Amasa Coleman Lee, was a lawyer , the father of Scout. In 1919 he defended two black men accused of murder. After conviction and hanging, Amasa has never forbidden criminal case. He was also the editor and publisher of local Monroeville , which was the hometown of Lee. Scout’s mother died when it was still a baby, Harper Lee was 25 years old when his mother died. She suffered from neurosis , which made ​​absent emotionally and mentally. Lee also had a brother, as Jem in the book, was older than four years. As in the novel, a black housekeeper came every day to look after the house of Lee.

The character of Dill was inspired by Lee’s childhood friend, Truman Capote . As Dill who lives next door to Scout during the summer, Capote lived with his aunts next door to Lee when his mother went to New York. Dill Capote inherited an incredible imagination and a gift for fascinating stories. Children, Lee and Capote loved to read and they invented and played their own stories. In 1960, Lee accompanied Capote to help him write his book In Cold Blood .

As in the novel, Lee lived near a family whose house was still closed. This family was the model for Radley. The son of this family has had trouble with the law and it remained hidden for 24 years in the house.

The character of Tom Robinson Lee was inspired by several people. When Lee was 10 years old, a white woman accused a black man, Walter Lett of raping her. The case and the trial were followed by the local newspaper’s father Lee. Walter Lett was convicted and sentenced to death but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after the discovery of the letters that innocent. He died in prison in 1937. Lee has also been inspired by the famous case of the Scottsboro Boys , in which nine young black men were accused of raping two white women. The character of Tom Robinson is also inspired by Emmett Till , a young black man murdered for flirting with a white woman in 1955 in Mississippi .