To kill a MockingBird- Harper Lee

To Kill A Mockingbird

The book “To Kill a Mockingbird”, by Harper Lee, is a beautiful narration of the prejudice and bigotry seen among the people of Southern America in the mid 1900s.

The story depicts the adventurous life of the narrator Jean Louise Finch, better known as ‘Scout’, along with her brother Jem and friend Dill. Scout lives in Maycomb County, Alabama. Scout, Jem and Dill are fascinated about the house next door and its occupants “The Radleys”. They come up with many plans and tricks to make Arthur (Boo) Radley come out of his house but all their efforts go in vain.

The most captivating part of the book comes when Scout’s father Atticus, a lawyer, gets a case to fight for a black, Tom Robinson. It becomes the most anticipated case for the denizens because of its two opponents, a Black and a White. It was because of the prejudiced view that the people in the south differentiated each other on the basis of their skin. Tom was falsely accused of taking advantage of a white girl but still the verdict was very clear even before the start of the trial. Racial discrimination and false allegations caused a lot of hysteria among the people. Atticus, the only ray of hope, tried his level best to make the people and the jury aware of the truth. Unfortunately, his efforts are dwarfed because of the blind faith of people on Whites.

In one of the chapters, the author tries to convey to the readers, that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird because mockingbirds are harmless creatures that do nothing but sing for our enjoyment. The book tells us about Scout and Jem’s childhood and how a series of events shook their innocence and shaped their character. They learnt that even good people suffered injustice.

This is an interesting and powerful book portraying the extreme prejudice that existed in the south at that time. It shows how the justice can be altered because of racism. Somewhere or the other, social discrimination is still effective in our legal system today. It is upon us to act wisely or ill-advisedly.


Contributed by Sneha Jain