Wow!
In what is surely the publishing event of the year, the publisher Harper has announced that Harper Lee’s second novel — the sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird — will be published on July 14, 2015. The novel is titled Go Set a Watchman, and it features the character Scout Finch as an adult. The book, which was written before To Kill a Mockingbird, was discovered last fall.
Read more at Flavorwire.
Interesting post from Mental Floss on author Harper Lee.
She’s been called a literary one-hit wonder. Yet, although Harper Lee-who celebrated her 88th birthday on Monday-never published another novel after To Kill a Mockingbird, she still managed to accomplish some incredible things later in life. Read all the awesome things here!
“You never really understand a person until you see things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
Atticus Finch
Played By: Gregory Peck
Film: To Kill A Mockingbird
Empire Magazine lists Atticus Finch as number 70 on their list of the greatest movie characters. Here’s why:
Why He’s On The List: A strong contender for the most noble character ever, Atticus Finch remains Peck’s finest performance and certainly his most beloved. Finch, a lawyer and widowed father of two, has stood as a model for tolerance, justice and integrity since Harper Lee’s novel was first published, and Peck harnessed the power of the role with timeless success.
Finest Hour: Facing a lynch mob in defence of Tom Robinson, the black man accused of raping a white woman in America’s south.
See the whole list here.
More good stuff from BBC Bitesize – this time on themes in To Kill a Mockingbird.
A theme is an idea that runs through a text. A text may have one theme or many. Understanding the themes makes the text more than ‘just’ a story – it becomes something more significant, because we’re encouraged to think deeper about the story and work out what lies beyond the plot.
The main themes that run through To Kill a Mockingbird are: Prejudice, Understanding, Loneliness, Courage and Innocence.
The themes interlock, but to start they are looked at separately. I know many students will wish to write about Atticus in their essays so as you go, think about the contribution Atticus makes to each one.
You will find the BBC material on themes here.
The BBC has a very easy to understand video guide to the plot of To Kill a Mockingbird. The video’s narrator is pictured above and it is well worth a watch. You will find the video here.
The essay question is from BBC Bitesize – go there and you will be shown how to create an answer.
As Scout walks back to her house after leading Boo Radley home at the end of the novel, she thinks:
“Jem and I would get grown but there wasn’t much else left for us to learn, except possibly algebra.”
What do Scout and Jem learn during the novel?
If you want to see how much you know about Harper Lee’s novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ try the Gradesaver quizzes. At the site you will also find lots of information on the novel.
In the American South former slaves and their children had little assurance that their post-Civil War freedoms would stick. By the 1890s, a system of laws and regulations commonly referred to as Jim Crow had emerged; by 1910, every state of the former Confederacy had upheld this legalised segregation and disenfranchisement. The term originated around 1830, when a white minstrel performer blackened his face, danced a jig, and sang the lyrics to the song “Jump Jim Crow.” At first the word was synonymous with such terms as black, coloured, or Negro, but it later became attached to this specific group of repressive laws.
During the Jim Crow era, state and local officials instituted curfews for blacks and posted “Whites Only” and “Colored” signs on parks, schools, hotels, water fountains, restrooms, and all modes of transportation. Laws against “race-mixing” deemed all marriages between white and black people not only void but illegal. Almost as bad as the injustice of Jim Crow was the inconsistency with which law enforcement applied it. Backtalk would rate a laugh in one town, and a lynching just over the county line.
Though violence used to subjugate blacks was nothing new, its character changed under Jim Crow. Southern white supremacist groups like the Klu Klux Klan reached a membership of six million. Mob violence was encouraged. Torture became a public spectacle. White families brought their children as witnesses to lynchings, and vendors hawked the body parts of victims as souvenirs. Between 1889 and 1930, over 3,700 men and women were reported lynched in the United States, many for challenging Jim Crow.
All this anger and fear led to the notorious trials of the “Scottsboro Boys,” an ordeal of sensational convictions, reversals, and retrials for nine young African American men accused of raping two white women on a train from Tennessee to Alabama. The primary testimony came from the older woman, a prostitute trying to avoid prosecution herself.
Juries composed exclusively of white men ignored clear evidence that the women had suffered no injury. As in To Kill a Mockingbird, a black man charged with raping a white woman was not accorded the usual presumption of innocence. In January of 1932, the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed seven out of eight death sentences against the adult defendants. A central figure in the case was an Atticus-like judge, James E. Horton, a member of the Alabama Bar who eventually defied public sentiment to overturn a guilty verdict.
A hero is often considered to be someone born with outstanding ability, courage, and bravery but are they born that way? Some heroes you are familiar with have forged their strength and character through their experiences. Their bravery and courage are developed in spite of fear and human failings. Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz must travel with her companions to develop qualities of courage, heart and brain before she can return home. In the film Titanic, Rose must learn to take hold of her own life and make it truly her own. The steps in a hero’s journey were developed by American Joseph Campbell and I have put a simple version of them below.
Steps in a Hero’s Journey:
Now this model fits Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird as for most people he is a truly heroic character. He stands up for what he believes in despite the personal cost to himself and his family. Atticus tells Scout that if he didn’t defend Tom Robinson he wouldn’t be able to hold up his head because “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.” When Atticus agrees to represent Tom he is set on a journey – a hero’s journey.
If you are revising Harper Lee’s novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ write an essay on the question below.
‘Our father didn’t do anything. He worked in an office, not in a drug store. Atticus did not drive a dump-truck for the county, he was not the sheriff, he did not farm, work in a garage, or do anything that could possibly arouse the admiration of anyone.’
How does Harper Lee present Atticus as a man that Scout learns to admire?
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