In 1960, Harper Lee published her critically acclaimed book To Kill a Only a year after being published the American classicnovel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in fiction as well as theBrotherhood Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.Gregory Peck stared as Atticus in the successfully adapted 1962 motionpicture of To Kill a Mockingbird that won an Academy Award. This bookis based on many childhood experiences that Lee herself encounteredgrowing up in Southern Alabama. This book is based on three childrenthat learn about goodness and courage throughout their adolescence. Inthe course of their growing up the children do a great deal of learning,but little of that learning takes place in school... is life itself, theirexperience(Schuster 507-508). The apparent message of To Kill aMockingbird is a plea for racial tolerance and understanding. Atticus Finch is a small-town lawyer who is considered an extremelymorally upright man. He must defend an innocent black man in courtwho has been convicted of raping a white woman. This widower was leftwith two children when his wife died when the younger of the two, JeanLouise (Scout) Finch was just two years old. When the story initiallybegins Scout is six years old. The events of this story are told from theview point of this tomboy of a female whose older brother, JeremyAtticus (Jem) Finch, was just nearing his teens. Jem Finch isapproximately four years older than his sister. He is direly protective ofScout and obviously quieter and more reserved than Scout. With the locale of To Kill a Mockingbird being in a small-town insouthern Alabama by the name of Maycomb, this story has variousexamples of bigotry and bereaved people. To Kill a Mockingbird is set inthe mid-1930’s which was during the Depression Period. The majority ofMaycomb’s townspeople have lost all of their money and are barelygetting by. Some of the populace get paid for their services not by moneybut w...
