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ـ قتل الطائر المحاكي،
للمؤلفة
هاربر لي
To Kill a Mockingbird
is a novel by
Harper Lee
published in 1960. It was instantly successful, winning the
Pulitzer Prize
, 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 the 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 explains 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, 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
challenged
for its use of racial epithets. Scholars also note the black characters in the novel are not fully explored, and some black readers receive it ambivalently, although it has an often profound effect on many white readers.
Reception to the novel varied widely upon publication. Literary analysis of it is considerably sparse compared to the number of copies sold and its use in education. Author Mary McDonough Murphy, who collected individual impressions of the book by several authors and public figures, calls
To Kill a Mockingbird
"an astonishing phenomenon".
[2]
In 2006, British librarians ranked the book ahead of the
Bible
as one "every adult should read before they die".
[3]
It 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.
Biographical background and publication
Born in 1926,
Harper Lee
grew up in the Southern town of
Monroeville, Alabama
, where she became close friends with soon-to-be famous writer
Truman Capote
. She attended
Huntingdon College
in
Montgomery
(1944–45), and then studied law at the
University of Alabama
(1945–49). While attending college, she wrote for campus literary magazines:
Huntress
at Huntingdon and the humor magazine
Rammer Jammer
at the University of Alabama. At both colleges, she wrote short stories and other works about racial injustice, a rarely mentioned topic on such campuses at the time.
[4]
In 1950, Lee moved to New York City, where she worked as a reservation clerk for
British Overseas Airways Corporation
; there, she began writing a collection of essays and short stories about people in Monroeville. Hoping to be published, Lee presented her writing in 1957 to a
literary agent
recommended by Capote. An editor at
J. B. Lippincott
advised her to quit the airline and concentrate on writing. Donations from friends allowed her to write uninterrupted for a year.
[5]
Ultimately, Lee spent two and a half years writing
To Kill a Mockingbird
. A description of the book's creation by the
National Endowment for the Arts
relates an episode when Lee became so frustrated that she tossed the manuscript out the window into the snow. Her agent made her retrieve it.
[6]
The book was published on July 11, 1960. It was initially titled
Atticus
, but Lee renamed it to reflect a story that went beyond a character portrait.
[7]
The editorial team at Lippincott warned Lee that she would probably sell only several thousand copies.
[8]
In 1964, Lee recalled her hopes for the book when she said, "I never expected any sort of success with 'Mockingbird.' ... I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers but, at the same time, I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped for a little, as I said, but I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I'd expected."
[9]
Instead of a "quick and merciful death",
Reader's Digest Condensed Books
chose the book for reprinting in part, which gave it a wide readership immediately.
[10]
Since the original publication, the book has never been out of print.
Plot summary
See also:
List of To Kill a Mockingbird characters
The story takes place during three years of the
Great Depression
in the fictional "tired old town" of Maycomb, Alabama.
It focuses on six-year-old Scout Finch
, who lives with
her older brother Jem and their widowed father Atticus
, a middle-aged lawyer.
Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill who visits Maycomb to stay with his aunt each summer. The three children are terrified of, and fascinated by, their neighbor, the
reclusive
"Boo" Radley. The adults of Maycomb are hesitant to talk about Boo and, for many years, few have seen him. The children feed each other's imagination with rumors about his appearance and reasons for remaining hidden, and they fantasize about how to get him out of his house. Following two summers of friendship with Dill, Scout and Jem find that someone is leaving them small gifts in a tree outside the Radley place. Several times, the mysterious Boo makes gestures of affection to the children, but, to their disappointment, never appears in person.
Atticus is appointed by the court to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who has been accused of raping a young white woman, Mayella Ewell. Although many of Maycomb's citizens disapprove, Atticus agrees to defend Tom to the best of his ability. Other children taunt Jem and Scout for Atticus' actions, calling him a " Nig!*% -lover". Scout is tempted to stand up for her father's honor by fighting, even though he has told her not to. For his part, Atticus faces a group of men intent on lynching Tom. This danger is averted when Scout, Jem, and Dill shame the mob into dispersing by forcing them to view the situation from Atticus' and Tom's points of view.
Because Atticus does not want them to be present at Tom Robinson's trial, Scout, Jem, and Dill watch in secret from the
colored balcony
. Atticus establishes that the accusers—Mayella and her father, Bob Ewell, the
town drunk
—are lying. It also becomes clear that the friendless Mayella was making sexual advances towards Tom and her father caught her and beat her badly. Despite significant evidence of Tom's innocence, the jury convicts him. Jem's faith in justice is badly shaken, as is Atticus', when a hopeless Tom is shot and killed while trying to escape from prison.
Humiliated by the trial, Bob Ewell vows revenge. He spits in Atticus' face on the street, tries to break into the presiding judge's house, and menaces Tom Robinson's widow. Finally, he attacks the defenseless Jem and Scout as they walk home on a dark night from the school
Halloween
pageant. Jem's arm is broken in the struggle, but amid the confusion, someone comes to the children's rescue. The mysterious man carries Jem home, where Scout realizes that he is Boo Radley.
Maycomb's sheriff arrives and discovers that Bob Ewell has been killed in the struggle. The sheriff argues with Atticus about the prudence and ethics of holding Jem or Boo responsible. Atticus eventually accepts the sheriff's story that Ewell simply fell on his own knife. Boo asks Scout to walk him home, and after she says goodbye to him at his front door, he disappears again. While standing on the Radley porch, Scout imagines life from Boo's perspective and regrets that they never repaid him for the gifts he had given them.
Autobiographical elements
Lee has said that
To Kill a Mockingbird
is not an
autobiography
, but rather an example of
how an author "should write about what he knows and write truthfully
"
Nevertheless, several people and events from Lee's childhood parallel those of the fictional Scout. Lee's father, Amasa Coleman Lee, was an attorney, similar to Atticus Finch, and in 1919, he defended two black men accused of murder. After they were convicted, hanged, and mutilated,
he never tried another criminal case. Lee's father was also the editor and publisher of the Monroeville newspaper. Although more of a proponent of racial segregation than Atticus, he gradually became more liberal in his later years.
Though Scout's mother died when she was a baby, and Lee was 25 when her mother died, her mother was prone to
a
nervous condition
that rendered her mentally and emotionally absent.
بطلة القصة يتيمه وهي طفلة بينما توفيت ام الرائية لي وعمرها 25 سنه لكنها كانت تعاني من حالة عصبية مما جعلها غائبه عقليا وعاطفيا
Lee had a brother named Edwin, who — like the fictional Jem — was four years older than his sister. As in the novel, a black housekeeper came daily to care for the Lee house and family.
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