Hundreds of years ago, the Ming Dynasty thinker Li Zhen expressed his view of literature in this way: "The husband and childlike heart, absolutely false and innocent, the original heart of the first thought." If you lose your childlike heart, you lose your true heart; if you lose your true heart, you lose your true person. He believes that the author should fake the truth in the creative process and truly and frankly express the author's inner feelings.
Hundreds of years later, I had the privilege of reading such a novel that used the author's childlike heart to identify the protagonist's childlike heart, "To Kill a Mockingbird.".
"To Kill a Mockingbird" is a novel by American writer Harper S. Thompson. Lee's 1960 novel, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was translated into more than 40 languages and published in various countries around the world, won three Oscars at the 25th Academy Award for the film of the same name adapted from the novel. Harper. When asked why, Lee stopped working in seclusion in her hometown after writing this masterpiece, and when asked why, she replied: "There has been such a time, what else can I write about?" "
"I think lawyers were also children." This is a sentence from the quote from "To Kill a Mockingbird" by the British essayist Charles Scott. Lamb. When I first read this sentence, I suddenly realized that we were all innocent and childlike children. And this film was written by the American writer Harper. The novel written by Li shows us the innocent childhood of a child, and also allows us to encounter a grand growth in the text with the author's sincere brushstrokes.
"To Kill a Mockingbird" is not a story about hunting a mockingbird as the title suggests, but is based on the perspective of Scout, a little girl who is almost six years old, telling her about her growth in the town and some of the events that happened in the town as she grew up. The direct description of the "robin" is only a few in the whole novel, but the "robin" carries a deep symbolic meaning throughout the story of the novel.
Why is the title "Kill a Mockingbird"? What does the robin symbolize? I believe that many readers have such questions, next, the author tries to interpret the meaning behind the robin from three clues.
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<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="01" > "Killing a robin is a crime." </h1>
"The robins just hum beautiful music for people to enjoy and don't do anything bad. They never eat the flowers, fruits and vegetables grown in people's yards, nor do they nest in barns, but just sing for us. So killing a robin is a crime. "
The above two sentences are from the tenth chapter of the first part of the novel, and the first time in the novel to point out the title of "kill a mockingbird", which explains to the reader why it cannot kill a robin, and also paves the way for the following storyline.
From the first point of the original text, it can be seen that the image of the robin conforms to people's judgment of right and wrong, good and evil, it never does anything to harm human beings, on the contrary, it also brings people beautiful music, so humans should not kill it. From this, it can be concluded that the mockingbird is actually a symbol of the quality of goodness.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="02" > two losses of robins</h1>
The second and third references to robins in the novel are descriptions of the robo's voice. The context of the events in both places is related to danger.
The first time a robin loses its voice, it is set against the backdrop of a mad dog that attacks people in the small town of Maycomb.
"On the empty streets, people wait in horror for danger – there's nothing more deadly than that. The trees did not move, the robins were silent, and the carpenters who built Miss Modi's house scattered. "
Everyone was waiting for Sheriff Tate to shoot the mad dog, and when "my" dad, Finch, urged the Sheriff to shoot, Mr. Tate said that once the bullet was deflected, it flew directly to Radley's house. The strange man Radley has been living in seclusion for many years, and he may not know what is happening on the street at this time, nor will he understand the situation of his home at this moment. At this time, Mr. Tate handed the gun to Finch, a legendary sharpshooter who had not fired a gun in thirty years. In the following story development, Finch successfully shot the mad dog, with the muzzle slightly off to the right.
Throughout the process of shooting the mad dog, all the people in danger hold their breath, and the silence of the robin on the one hand renders the tension of this scene, bringing the reader into the moment of hunting; on the other hand, it also symbolizes the appearance of goodness and justice, although the strange man Radley can not escape the world, he has never hurt the people here, killing the mad dog is to protect the safety of the townspeople, and in order to kill the mad dog accidentally shot into Radley's yard, it is tantamount to indirectly killing the good, and the whole thing loses justice. So the absence of robin calls is a reminder not to hurt any innocent good person.
The second robin loses his voice, in the twenty-first chapter of the novel, is set on the day of the trial of the white Yuel accusing Black Tom of rape.
The feeling grew stronger and stronger until the atmosphere in the courtroom became as gloomy as it had been on that cold February morning: the robins were silent, the carpenter who had built Miss Modi's new house had stopped banging, and every neighbor had closed its doors like The Radleys. The empty streets looked so desolate, as if waiting for something, and the courtroom was crowded with people. This steaming summer night was nothing short of a winter morning. "
This is a scene similar to the first mockingbird's voice, suggesting another appearance of goodness, another pivotal moment for justice. Tom, the black man at the bottom of society, is accused of rape by the bottom white man, and although Finch's lawyer holds the balance of justice this time, he has enough reason to show that justice is biased in favor of Black Tom, and the power on the other end of the scale is too stubborn. The deep-seated racial discrimination in American society has long made people full of prejudice against the black community, although black people are not at fault, like robins, they have not hurt others in the slightest, but the colored glasses of society have always hurt them frequently, not considering their justice. So here again the reference to the robin no longer singing, reminding people not to hurt the innocent.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="03" > a mockingbird that sings again</h1>
The last mention of the robin in the novel is in chapter twenty-eight, and the story is nearing the end. This time it's set against the backdrop of the oddman Radley stepping up to protect Scott and Jem and killing yuel in the dark.
"High above our heads, a lone robin is singing its reserved track endlessly in the darkness, singing so happily and sweetly that it forgets whose tree it is standing on. It first came with the sharp 'chirping' of sunflower birds, then turned into the grumpy 'quack' of the crowned blue crow, and then sang the lamentation of the North American nighthawk: 'Puville, Puwell'. "
When Radley kills Yuell to save people, Sheriff Tate and Finch engage in a heated argument. Yuel was the one who indirectly killed Tom, a black man, and almost everyone in town knew that Tom was innocent in the rape case involving Tom, although the court did not acquit Tom, and Yuel's death at this time would undoubtedly be a cause for concern. Sheriff Tate insisted that Yuel had accidentally committed suicide, while Finch's lawyer insisted that it was his son Jem who killed Yuell. In fact, the starting point of their argument is the same, that is, to avoid involving the strange man Radley. But Sheriff Tate's view protects the innocent victim Jem while also protecting the freak Radley in a unique way. Because Yuell was a dangerous man in the town, and the person who killed him was equivalent to doing a good deed for the town, it might not matter if he was replaced by someone else, but it was different when it came to Radley. Radley has always been called a freak by the townspeople for his unique way of life, he has no contact with all the people in the town, and he has not appeared in public for decades, so when he is involved, not only will there be a lot of discussion, but it will also ruin his life.
"How to say, it's like killing a mockingbird, right?" The whole text echoes the theme again with the words of the little girl Scout. This time, the good people were protected, the righteous Yuel died under the knife, and the mockingbird song once again resounded through the dark night sky, singing mournfully, but justice was not absent. It also symbolizes that despite the difficulties on the road to justice, there will always be a moment when the song breaks through the darkness.