Teaching Guide to TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee Note to Teachers

Teaching Guide to
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee

Note to Teachers

Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926 in Monroeville Alabama, a small town in
southwest Alabama, which produced two world-renowned authors in the same
generation. Harper Lee was the grade school classmate of the young Truman Capote,
with whom she maintained a friendship well into adulthood. (In 1966 Capote dedicated In
Cold Blood to her). The youngest of four children of Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances
Finch Lee, Harper attended Huntingdon College 1944-45, studied law at University of
Alabama 1945-49, and spent a year at Oxford University. In the 1950s she moved to
New York City where, after working briefly as a reservation clerk with Eastern Air Lines
and BOAC, she decided to focus exclusively on her writing. She moved into a cold-water
flat and began To Kill a Mockingbird. In 1957 she submitted the manuscript to the J. B.
Lippincott Company and was told that her novel read too much like a series of loosely
connected short stories. She spent the next two and a half years revising the book and
in 1960 it was published to widespread acclaim, winning the Pulitzer Prize and
thousands of devoted readers.

Set in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the height of the Great Depression,
To Kill a Mockingbird is a loosely autobiographical novel of the coming-of-age of its
tomboy heroine, Scout Finch. (Like Scout, Harper Lee was herself a tomboy, and
several reminiscences published by former schoolmates in the Monroe Journal1 testify
to her playground ferocity). The novel is narrated retrospectively by Scout and much of
the book concerns the movement from an innocent and in some ways idyllic childhood to
a deeper knowledge of the darker aspects of human behavior and society. As the novel
begins, Scout and her brother Jem, along with their summertime friend, Dill Harris, are
fascinated by a mysterious and mentally-retarded hermit, Boo Radley, who inspires their
imaginations to wild flights and fears. Boo seems to suggest a malevolent force hidden
in their midst. While he turns out to be a benign figure in the end, the sense of a
disturbing reality lying beneath Maycomb‟s pleasant appearance is made clear when
Tom Robinson is falsely accused of raping a white woman, Mayella Ewell. The town‟s
latent racism erupts when Atticus agrees to defend Tom. Atticus is called “a nigger lover”
not only by Mayella‟s father Bob Ewell but by Scout and Jem‟s classmates, cousins, and
neighbors. The children are thus thrown abruptly into the adult world of racial prejudice,
sexual assault, deceit, narrow-mindedness, ignorance and hatred. In telling the story
from Scout‟s innocent perspective, Lee reveals just how cruel and absurd the adult world
can appear to a child.

Set against the injustice of that world is Atticus Finch who not only feels bound by
conscience to defend Tom Robinson but also to empathize with those whose prejudice
and ignorance have jeopardized Tom‟s life. In this way, Atticus embodies the Christian
virtue of loving one‟s neighbors, regardless of their race or disposition. Atticus also
serves as a powerful counter to the gaps the novel reveals between appearance and
reality: he is the same at home as he is in the courthouse. He is the novel‟s moral center
and even though he cannot win Tom‟s case, he does impart to Scout and Jem, and

indeed to all who know him, a powerful example of integrity, fairness, and quiet courage
that makes To Kill a Mockingbird at once a tragic and a hopeful novel.

Questions for Class Discussion

1. To Kill a Mockingbird has achieved a prominent place in American culture, both as a
     book that won the Pulitzer Prize and was voted by librarians as the best novel of the
     century and as extraordinarily popular film. What had you heard about the novel
     before you read it? Had you seen the film? How was your experience of the book
     different from what you expected? How is it different from the film?

2.     In her Foreword, Harper Lee asks that her book be spared an Introduction.
     “Introductions,” she writes, “inhibit pleasure, they kill the joy of anticipation, they
     frustrate curiosity.” Do you agree? Why would an introduction hinder rather than help
     a reader approach a book? Why is it sometimes better just to jump right into the
     story?

3. What kind of town is Maycomb, Alabama? How does Lee create such a vivid sense
     of the particular place and time in which her story is set? What details about the
     town, its history and its inhabitants, make the place feel real? Why is the setting
     important for the story? How would the story be different if it were set in New York
     City or North Dakota?

4.    In what ways is the 1930s era, with WWII looming on the horizon and the Great
     Depression in full swing, relevant to the events of the novel? How does what was
     happening in Nazi Germany at the time parallel relations between blacks and whites
     in the American South?

5. On the opening page of the novel, Scout Finch says that “When enough years had
     gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events
     leading up to [Jem‟s] accident.” How old do you think Scout is when she writes the
     story? How is the Scout who narrates the events of the story different from the Scout
     who experiences them?

6. When Scout thoughtlessly remarks on the impoverished Walter Cunningham‟s bad
     table manners, Calpurnia takes her aside and explains: “There‟s some folks who
     don‟t eat like us…but you ain‟t called on to contradict „em at the table when they
     don‟t. That boy‟s yo‟ comp‟ny and if he wants to eat up the whole table cloth you let
     him, you hear?” [p. 27]. What important lesson is Calpurnia imparting to Scout in this
     scene? How is this lesson related to the novel‟s larger themes? Why is it significant
     that it comes, in this instance, from Calpurnia?

7.    When Scout complains about her teacher, Atticus tells her that “if you can learn a
     simple trick, Scout, you‟ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really
     understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb
     into his skin and walk around in it” [p. 33]. Where in the novel does Atticus himself
     demonstrate this kind of empathy? How does he regard those who criticize, ridicule,
     or threaten him? How would this ability to empathize with others help solve the
     problems that arise from racism and prejudice?

8. What kind of young girl is Scout Finch? In what ways is she both a familiar and an
   unusual character? Did you identify with her? How does she change over the course
   of the novel? What does she learn? Why does she resist Aunt Alexandra‟s efforts to
   turn her into a “lady”?

9. Why is Boo Radley, a man who is hidden away for nearly the entire novel, such an
   important figure in To Kill a Mockingbird? Why are Jem and Scout and Dill so
   fascinated by him? In what ways is it both ironic and appropriate that the man Jem
   and Scout most fear is the one who saves them?

10. Why does Atticus accept Tom Robinson‟s case, even though he knows he will lose
   it? What do the reasons for his acceptance tell us about his character?

11. Because the courtroom is so crowded, Scout and Jem watch Tom Robinson‟s trial
   from the “Colored balcony” with the Reverend Sykes and the rest of Maycomb‟s
   black community. Why would Lee place them there? What is the symbolic
   significance of Scout and Jem viewing the trial from this perspective?

12. Tom Robinson makes a huge mistake when, during the prosecutor‟s cross-
   examination, he says that he “felt right sorry” for Mayella [p.225]. Why would the
   whites in the courtroom find this statement so disturbing?

13. In his closing arguments, Atticus asserts that Mayella accused Tom Robinson of
   rape “in an effort to get rid of her own guilt” for trying to seduce him [p. 232]. Can you
   think of other instances of this psychological dynamic—one group projecting its guilt
   onto another and then punishing that group to preserve its own “innocence”?

14. Atticus also insists to the jury that “there is one way in this country in which all men
   are created equal—there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a
   Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal
   of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court” [p. 234]. Does the
   jury‟s guilty verdict invalidate Atticus‟s claims? Are the courts today “the great
   levelers,” making us all equal, as Atticus believes, or do wealth and race play an
   inordinate role in the way justice is distributed in America?

15. Although To Kill a Mockingbird is set in the 1930s, it was published in the 1960, just
   as the civil rights movement was gathering force. In what ways does the book reflect
   a 1960s perspective on racial issues?

16. When Atticus gives Jem and Scout air-rifles, he tells them: “Shoot all the bluejays
   you want, if you can hit „em, but remember it‟s a sin to kill a mockingbird” [p. 103].
   Why does Atticus feel this way? Why do you think Lee chose this phrase for her title?

17. Lee creates a cast of vivid women characters in the novel: Calpurnia, Aunt
   Alexandra, Miss Maudie, Miss Stephanie, Mrs. Dubose, and the matrons of Aunt
   Alexandra‟s missionary circle. What do these characters add to the novel? What
   varying attitudes towards such issues as race, religion, and education to they
   express? Why does Aunt Alexandra, in particular, oppose Atticus‟s ways of raising
   his children and his defense of Tom Robinson?

18. What qualities make Atticus such an appealing figure? What beliefs does he live by?
     Does his behavior conform to his ideals? How does he impart his ideals to his
     children and his community? Is he a believable character, or too good to be true?

19. To what extent is the novel‟s emotional power dependent on Tom Robinson‟s death?
     How would the novel be different if he had been acquitted or simply sent to prison?

20. In what ways does To Kill a Mockingbird speak to the current racial issues that
     confront America? In what ways does it address the larger themes of growing up,
     learning right from wrong, and becoming an understanding, compassionate person?

Topics for Research and Writing Projects

1.    Assume that Tom Robinson had not been killed after his conviction and write a
     paper exploring what you think would have happened if Atticus had brought his case
     before a higher court of appeals. Explain why you feel he would have won or lost. Or
     write a one-act play that dramatizes a second trial.

2. Harper Lee studied law and was no doubt influenced in writing her novel by some of
     the spectacular court cases that were revealing America‟s highly conflicted feelings
     about race. Research the Scottsboro Trial (1931), in which eight African American
     males were falsely accused of raping two white women while on a train to Memphis.
     What parallels do you find between the Scottsboro case and the fictional trial of Tom
     Robinson? How has Lee used material from real life to make her novel more
     powerful and relevant?

3. Alabama was the scene of some of the most intense and most significant struggles
     in the civil rights movement. Research the Birmingham bus boycott, the march on
     Selma, which was led by Martin Luther King, Jr., the attempted integration of public
     schools in Alabama, which Governor George Wallace temporarily blocked, and
     explore how reading To Kill a Mockingbird helps to illuminate these events. What
     does the novel tells us about both the prejudice and the compassion of the people of
     Alabama that made the civil rights struggles so crucial there?

4.    In a 1964 interview, Harper Lee said about the craft of writing that “There‟s no
     substitute for the love of language, for the beauty of an English sentence. There‟s no
     substitute for struggling, if a struggle is needed, to make an English sentence as
     beautiful as it should be.”2 Pick out several sentences in To Kill a Mockingbird that
     seem especially beautiful. Write a paper exploring what it is that makes these
     sentences so appealing? How would you describe Lee‟s style? Why is it so well-
     suited to the story she is telling?

5. In discussing whites‟ mistreatment of blacks, Atticus tells Scout and Jem: “Don‟t fool
     yourselves—it‟s all adding up and one of these days we‟re going to pay the bill for it.
     I hope it‟s not in you children‟s time” [p. 253]. Write a paper exploring the ways we
     have paid and are still paying the “bill” for centuries of racial oppression.

6.    Watch the film of To Kill a Mockingbird and discuss which version seems more
     powerful to you and why. How does the movie differ from the book? How have the

screenwriter, director, and actors reshaped the material of the story to make the film?
     Do you agree with their choices?

7.     When Atticus is preparing to defend Tom Robinson, he tells Uncle Jack: “Why
     reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up,
     is something I don‟t pretend to understand…I just hope that Jem and Scout come to
     me for answers instead of listening to the town” [p. 100-1]. Write a paper that
     explains why people in Maycomb do “go stark raving mad when anything involving a
     Negro comes up.” What forces are responsible for their reactions? How does their
     racism manifest itself in the novel? You might want to approach this assignment by
     assuming the voice of a student in Maycomb composing a letter to Atticus Finch, or
     writing an editorial for the town‟s newspaper about Tom‟s trial.

8.    To Kill a Mockingbird is very much about the moral education of Jem and Scout.
     Write a paper that explores what they learn about themselves and about the society
     in which they live during the course of the novel. Also explore the ways they learn
     what they learn. What kind of adults do you think they would turn out to be?

9.     Atticus insists that to really understand someone, you have get inside his skin.
     Imagine for a moment that you are Tom Robinson and write a paper in his voice. You
     might want to conceive of this as a series of diary entries composed before, during,
     and after the trial, as a letter to Atticus, after he has been convicted, or as a open
     letter to the town. Try to imagine how Tom would feel and what he would say.

10. Why do you think To Kill a Mockingbird has become a classic and has remained to
     popular? What is it about the book that keeps attracting readers over four decades
     after its initial publication? Why does it still speak to us so powerfully?

Suggested further reading

James Baldwin, Go Tell It On the Mountain; Clayborne Carson, The Eyes on the Prize:
Civil Rights Reader: Documents, Speeches, and Firsthand Accounts from the Black
Freedom Struggle, 1954-1990; Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man; Zora Neale Hurston, Their
Eyes Were Watching God; Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye; John
Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men; Alice Walker, The Color Purple; Richard Wright, Black Boy,
Native Son.

1 George Thomas Jones, in The Monroe Journal, May 6, 1999. This article, along with
other useful resources on To Kill a Mockingbird, can be found on the web at:
http://www.educeth.ch/english/readinglist/leeh/remin.html.

2 Roy Newquist, “An Interview with Harper Lee,” in Counterpoint (New York: Rand
McNally, 1964). Interview can be found on the web at:
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Culture/HarperLee.