To Kill a Mockingbird

Things are never as bad as they seem

Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ is a book that everyone must read before they die. Its main theme may be racial injustice in America, but it also deals with simpler lessons. The novel is written from the perspective of a six-year-old girl, Jean Louise Finch, who is the daughter of a lawyer, Atticus Finch.

The novel is not just about how the Atticus defends a black man accused of rape, it’s more. It talks about gender roles, stereotypes, rumours, orthodox thinking, and also about the infamous transition to adolescence.

‘To Kill A Mockingbird” strives to look at the world through the eyes of a six-year-old. The novel is streaked with her innocence and inquisitiveness about different situations and behaviours. She raises questions we all raised as children but never got the answers to. This is how Harper Lee makes us revisit our childhood days of simplicity. The beauty of the novel lies in the fact that it addresses major issues of the society, from an entirely different perspective that of a little girl who is unaware. When the little girl questions a behaviour, it makes you ponder upon the futility of it all. Look at the world with the pristine eyes of a child, and you will know everything that is wrong with it and that is exactly what Harper Lee exemplified with ‘To Kill A Mockingbird”. The novel is a poignant description of how the world actually is; because it is seen by someone untouched by its ways, by a girl who has not grown up yet.

Harper Lee’s novel is so beautifully descriptive, that one can experience the courtroom, the yard and the church around them, but more than that, the reader can feel the myriad shades of emotions that each character feels: From the screaming agony of Mayella Ewell to the silent despair of Tom Robinson.

To Kill A Mockingbird talks about a father and a gentleman, of ideas engraved in the society’s foundations, of a neighbourhood with all kinds of people, but mostly, it talks about how us humans tend to complicate things, for no rhyme or reason, to our own disadvantage. The book is a delightful experience, so much so that upon ending it, you are left revelling in its charm. You are left with a tingling nose and moist eyes.

“I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.”