Harper Lee's Life Analysis

Harper Lee is an American writer, born on April 28, 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama. She is famous for her race relations novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. The book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. And it became an international bestseller and was adapted into screen in 1962 under a movie named ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ as well. Lee was 34 when the book was published, and it still remains her only novel.

Lee’s childhood has a huge impact on her book. It has affected not only the settings and characters, but also the events. Analyzing the novel, there are quite many similarities between Lee’s life especially throughout her childhood and the life in the novel. Monroeville, which is Lee’s hometown, is a quiet small town where everyone knows their

As previously mentioned, Maycomb is a quiet small Southern town where black people are totally oppressed. They are thought of as citizens belonging to a lower social rank. Moreover, they are excluded from the town’s society. All what they get is oppression and injustice. For example, Atticus thinks that everyone deserves a fair trial while Maycomb thinks that only white people do. Tom Robinson was proved to be innocent due to the clear evidence. Yet, he was sentenced to a long time prison only because of his skin color. And when he tries to escape due to the injustice he faces, he gets shot to death. Oppression based on ethnicity is more of an ideology inherited through generations. This is why children at school start to abuse Jem and Scout after their father accepts to defend Robinson. Moral education would change ill personalities and make them more open to people from different races. It will make them consider them as real human beings. For example, Scout never considered Boo Radley as a person. She even participated in acting out his story with Jem and Dill. When Atticus saw them doing this, he advised them to try to see life from another person’s point of view instead of making judgements. When Boo Radley finally got out of the Radley Place to save her and Jem from Ewell’s attack, had a small talk with her then disappeared there again, she managed to understand how life is to Boo. She could finally see him as human being. She could then understand her father’s advice about trying to see life from someone else’s perspective. Then Scout started to embrace sympathy and understanding according to her father’s advice. And this is what it takes to manage compassion and forgiveness towards people; a little of