The novel we all had to read sometime during our school years. I wasn't interested at the time. Why should I read a novel about a girl growing up in the South? I was a boy growing up in the South. Now, of course, I wish I had paid better attention.
Reading it now, I can see more reasons why I wasn't impressed as a schoolboy. Almost all the action happens off-stage. Only the final confrontation with the white trash father of the girl that cried rape is really narrated, and even that is confusing and murky.
I would be really surprised if this novel could get published today. There are so many passive verbs in that first page that agents would reject it on sight. But if you slow down to the pace of the book and the pace of the small town, it does have a mood and atmosphere that sucks you in. And it is very easy to read and understand.
The symbolism, as explained in any textbook or cliff's notes version of the book, if obvious but not overstated. It is a true Southern gothic, pointing out the good and the bad in Southern culture.
There do seem to be many manipulations by the author. Each little scene seems to have some deeper meaning or offer some insight into the world of the little girl. It almost seems as if Lee planned these little episodes just to preach to us.
If someone like Atticus Finch can rise above his ancestry and education, perhaps there is hope for all of us.
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