To Kill a Mockingbird Commemorative Edition
"To Kill a Mockingbird" is world-renowned and well-known, and it is also the only novel in the life of American female writer Harper Lee. The reporter asked her why, she said: "There has been such a time, what else can I write about?" ”
In fact, this book not only accommodates all the life feelings of the writer, but also influences generations of Americans, and is also widely read by readers around the world, and is regarded as "one of the must-read books of life", and the Bible has followed it. To date, it has been translated into more than 40 languages, selling more copies than the classics of the same period, such as The Great Gatsby and The Catcher of the Rye. Obama has publicly given his daughter two books, one of which is one. It is also the most borrowed book in the United States.
The story unfolds from the perspective of a nine-year-old girl, Scout.
She and her brother Jem are in their formative years and have a strong curiosity about people and things outside. The various neighbors in Maycombe are the first object of their curiosity, and the strange man Radley enters their world and buries the dark threads of the book. The other line is a lawsuit. Their father, Atticus, was a lawyer. In the United States in the 1930s, racial discrimination was still severe. As a middle-class man in the white world, he chose to defend a black man accused of raping a white woman, setting off a terrible wave in the white world where he considered himself superior. The Scott siblings also grew quietly with this defense.
The themes of the story are diverse, covering human prejudice, childhood growth, education, fairness, justice, courage, class, gender, race, etc., of which human prejudice is the most profound theme.
First, the strange man Radley, a corner of human prejudice perspective
You can never really get to know a person unless you think about it from his point of view... Unless you burrow into his skin and walk around like he does.
The strange man Radley is such a person who is not understood and misunderstood by prejudice.
He was the most mysterious and terrifying man in town, having been in the same house for 25 years. Rumor has it in the town that Radley would peek at people's windows after the moon set; he would blow cold air to freeze the azaleas of his neighbor's house; no one would dare to eat the fruit that fell from his walnut tree in the school playground, because if he ate it, he would die; and even the perpetrator madman Eddie fell into the river and drowned, saying that he did it. In short, any crime committed in the town has nothing to do with him. In the eyes of the townspeople, the freak equals the bad guy.
The siblings and their little friend Dill were both curious and frightened of Radley, and somewhat excited and hostile, and were proud to dare to approach the door of his house. They spend the whole summer secretly playing the story of the weirdo, exciting and adventurous. To a child, Radley is equally strange and bad.
The little friend plays Radley
However, as the story progresses, Radley's ambiguous breath comes to the fore.
The brothers and sisters must pass through the tree holes on the road with chewing gum, pocket watches, silver dollars, medals and other gifts, as well as carved boys and girls; on the cold night of the town's fire, Scout is covered with a warm blanket at some point; after the children fail to peep, the lost pants are sewn neatly in place; finally, in the dark, kill the sneaker Yuel and save Jem's life... It is hard for people who do not know the reason to imagine that all these actions are the work of the strange man Radley.
Through the fog of legends, Radley is really a kind and righteous man, flashing the light of humanity.
He is a robin who has been hurt by the world.
Robins only sing to us and do nothing bad. They don't eat the flowers, fruits and vegetables in people's gardens, they don't make nests in corn silos, they just sing for us wholeheartedly. That's why killing a mockingbird is a sin.
When Radley was young, he was once indicted driving backwards with a group of friends in the town center square. After returning from state work school, he was locked in the house by his father, who said he would not let Radley get into any more trouble. The father was a foot-washing Baptist Christian who believed that all pleasure was sin and took God's Word as his only criterion. After his father's death, his brother took over and continued to watch over Radley.
In the beginning, Radley was a poor man bound by biblical dogma, and in the years that followed, he locked himself in. So, after the trial, my brother said to Scout, "I think I'm starting to understand the weird Radley, why he didn't come out of the house... Because he 'wants' to stay inside. ”
Yes, Radley was puzzled by the reactions of the outside world to his actions, those reactions, which were not so much corrections as evil deeds. He was only a little mad as a young man, and he was characterized by God as a sinner. In fact, God is fair, but the secular mortals who interpret God have self-righteous norms. No wonder Miss Modi, who has lived in the town for half her life, said: "Sometimes the Bible in the hands of one person is worse than the whiskey bottle in someone else's hand." ”
Everyone has their own rules in their hearts, so in every place and in every age, there are always people who regard prejudice as truth and ignorance as morality. Prejudice is so pervasive and powerful that we ourselves are difficult to perceive. Sometimes even if you have some awareness, you don't want to face it, you don't dare to overthrow it, because it means denying yourself, so you prefer to isolate and demonize the vulnerable rather than understand others.
Radley's mental hanging reveals the blind spots of humanity, but this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Tom, a black man, the robin who was shot in racial discrimination
If labeling the people around you with your own judgment standards is a kind of prejudice, then the discrimination that exists because of different races is a greater prejudice.
Black youth Tom Robinson, accused of raping white girl Meyera Yuel. In the American South at that time, the status of whites and blacks was still very different. Therefore, once they heard the news that white girls were raped by blacks, people were determined to be black crimes.
At the scene of the trial, lawyer Atticus guides Tom to tell the truth.
Yur father and daughter
The Yuells were the lowest of the white classes because they were the poorest. Meyera was in a situation where the whites were reluctant to take care of her because she lived with pig-like people; the Negroes were afraid to take care of her because she was white. She carried the burden of a family of seven children every day, without any friends or communication, only Tom showed her respect and was willing to help her when needed. The 19-year-old girl was so lonely that she had a crush on Tom, a black man. One evening, Meyera set a trap and kissed Tom's face. This scene was bumped into by the father, and in anger, the father and daughter collaborated to falsely accuse Tom of rape.
The obvious truth was in front of them, but the jury finally convicted Tom of the crime. While in custody, Tom tries to escape and is shot dead. Tom behaved well and was polite, but just because he was black, he was excluded from the truth until he was executed. This is a victim of even more tragic human prejudice, another mockingbird shot under racial discrimination.
Tearful Black Tom
Jem was dissatisfied with the members of the inquisition, and Atticus said something:
We live in a world where there are things that can make people lose their minds —no matter how hard others try, they can't be fair. In our courtroom, when a white man and a black man fight a lawsuit, the white man always wins. These are ugly, but they are social reality.
This is an open contempt and trampling on fairness and justice, but while trampling on it, people must also wear the cloak of "court trial", which seems to be fair.
At that time, although the Civil War had long been over and black slavery had been abolished, the social customary forces that had been formed for thousands of years still existed, and the blacks were still lowly and stupid. Even the lowest whites can dictate to them and make false accusations at will. Looking at all of humanity, racial discrimination still persists to this day, and is not limited to white people versus black people.
And the reason is nothing more than the predation of the weak, whoever masters advanced civilization and science and technology is the master of the world. It is ridiculous to say that the law of survival, the most helpless of the laws of survival in nature, still has a strong vitality in human society and exists in a self-deceptive way.
Under the appearance of prejudiced behavior, the evil of human nature in the main body of the iceberg is even more revealed.
Third, lawyer Atticus, courage blessing, to dig out the truth of human nature behind prejudice
Atticus is regarded by the industry as a "fighter" among lawyers. Despite being a fictional character, the legal profession sees him as a role model, and many legal commentaries cite Atticus. In The author Harper Lee's hometown of Monroeville, there is also a monument to Atticus Finch.
Atticus, the "fighter" among lawyers
His excellence lies not in his superb business knowledge, but in his strong courage, as well as his intellect and wisdom.
Atticus took over the rape case, defended the black man, and was under great pressure. First, his sister saw him as a family disgrace; second, his surrounding white neighbors saw him as a traitor in the white world; and the purest group of children used it as evidence to insult his two children. For a lawyer, he did just his part, but his life was threatened throughout the white prejudice system.
Knowing that the outcome was decided, he still stepped forward, ignoring public opinion and insults, and exposing the truth of the matter with calm restraint. He said
The reason is simple: we can't think that we have no reason to win because we have lost a hundred years before that. True bravery is knowing before acting that you are going to fail, but you still have to act, either way, to the end. You often lose, but sometimes you can also win.
He made me believe that something is worth doing at any cost, simply because it's right. What we need is the courage to persevere and the wisdom to judge right from wrong. As the roman emperor Aurelius said in his prayer:
Pray that God will give me peace of mind, Accept the unchangeable, Give me the courage to change what can be changed, And give me the wisdom to distinguish between the two.
Atticus had this wisdom. He was not led by the nose of the social habitual forces, but firmly sided with justice and conscience, although he eventually lost the case, but defended the dignity of the law and the highest law of all mankind, "all men are created equal".
He made a generous statement in court, which was deafening. What he called for was not absolute equality, but rather the right of every individual life to seek respect and understanding through the law.
In this kingdom, there is one aspect in which all men are born equal. There is a human institution that can make a poor man equal to Rockefeller; an idiot equal to Einstein; an ignorant man equal to any university president. What is this human institution? Gentlemen, it is the courtroom.
Atticus, calm and restrained in court
What is even more precious is that his firmness and bravery have pulled away the firm shell of some people and revealed the soft truth of human nature.
When the truth of the rape case came out, people found that everyone had something to do with it. Whether it is the Yuell family, the black community, even the members of the jury and the spectators in the stands, there is not a single bad person, they are just bound and blinded by social prejudices and customs, and they cannot be relieved.
When you see the truth of others, you are not far from your own truth.
So, as Atticus, as a loser, was about to leave, all the negroes in the last three rows of the courthouse stood up, and a negro next to Scutter said to her, "Miss Scout, please stand up." Your father is going through here. It was this simple sentence that was even more important than the final result, not to mention the various foods that were spontaneously and silently delivered to the kitchen of atticus's house, and there must be a white group among them. Some changes, just happened quietly.
The goodness in human nature is hidden behind prejudice, and after experiencing seeing and being seen, it appears brilliantly.
Fourth, the child Scout, change his position and lead the growth of all mankind
But there are always some people who are stuck in prejudice and can't come out.
Meyera's father harbored the deepest hatred for Atticus. He thinks it was Atticus who exposed his lies, tore his pride apart, and made him even more unable to gain a foothold in the town. The town's police officers and neighbors protected Atticus, and he turned to the two children. When, in the middle of the night, he pounces on Jem intending to strangle him, the strange man Radley comes to the rescue and kills Yuel.
Once again, good humanity is revealed. The officer conceals Radley's behavior and concludes that Yuel killed him by mistake. Radley was thus able to continue to live in seclusion. It goes without saying that Radley is now a metaphor for the goodness of human nature that needs to be protected.
As Scout took Radley's hand and sent him back to the house, she revisited everything in the town from Radley's perspective. It turns out that if you change your position, the look and feel is completely different. At the same time, she also found that only by putting herself in the shoes of the problem can we achieve real growth.
Through Radley's small window, she tells us that there are all kinds of people and groups in the world, they have all kinds of shortcomings and deficiencies, paranoia and stubbornness, and what we have to do is not to change them and eliminate them, but to learn to respect them, to respect the weaknesses of each individual and group. Only tolerance and acceptance can make the world more diverse and rich. If you have the courage and wisdom to tolerate, you have the power to change the world, and the world will quietly change.
At the end of "To Kill a Mockingbird", Skoura stands at Radley's door, and in a magical visual way, opens the boundaries between people for us, unveils the veil of prejudice, and the world and crowd in our eyes suddenly become gentle.
Don't kill any of the mockingbirds