“the African-American community has brought a kitchenful of food to his house in appreciation of his efforts to help Tom Robinson, and of the moment when Scout turns to see Boo Radley in Jem’s room and later as she looks down her street from the Radley porch and realizes that Boo has been looking out for them.” (Johnson, 1994, p. 5)
Finally, Harper Lee also skilfully superimposes the conventional bildungsroman genre with sociological discourse. To illustrate, through the development of Scout Finch’s character, the novel showcases the transformation of the Old South (which was steeped in violence, racism and elitism) to the emergent “maturity of a fresh perspective of compassion, compromise, and respect. Her growth is a journey from prejudice to tolerance, from ignorance to wisdom, from violence to self-control, from bigotry to empathy, from a code of honour to a code of law.” (Bennett, 2007) The book can thus be held as an outstanding text on race relations in the United States. But ironically, much of its merit as a socio-historical document comes from its fictitious and literary elements. It is also exemplar in how it sets up a counterpoint of the southern code of honour.
References
- Bennett, B. (2007). On Harper Lee: Essays and Reflections. The Mississippi Quarterly,60(2), 429+.
- Dorr, L. L. (2000). Black-on-White Rape and Retribution in Twentieth-Century Virginia: “Men, Even Negroes, Must Have Some Protection” The Journal of Southern History,66(4), 711.
- Fernando, R. (2012, March 9). TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee. The Independent (London, England), p. 26.
- Halpern, I. (2009). Rape, Incest, and Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’: On Alabama’s Legal Construction of Gender and Sexuality in the Context of Racial Subordination. Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, 18(3), 743+.
- Johnson, C. D. (1994). Understanding To Kill a Mockingbird: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historic Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
- Kasper, A. (2006). General Semantics in to Kill a Mockingbird. : A Review of General Semantics, 63(3), 272+.
- Lee, Harper.To Kill a Mockingbird. HarperCollins: 1960 (Perennial Classics edition: 2002). ISBN 0-06-093546-4.
- Shackelford, D. (1996). The Female Voice in to Kill a Mockingbird: Narrative Strategies in Film and Novel. The Mississippi Quarterly, 50(1), 101+.