Harper Lee is considered one of the greatest authors of all time. This is quite extraordinary for Lee only published one novel. Many of the greats such as J.K. Rowling, James Joyce, and C.S. Lewis, published many novels that all contributed to their fame. Lee’s only novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, is a story that is set in the early 1930’s during the great depression. The story includes a lawyer, Atticus Finch, his two children Jem and Scout, and a neighborhood friend, Charles Baker Harris, known otherwise as “Dill.” The main event of the novel is the trial of Tom Robinson. Atticus is appointed to defend a black man, Tom, who was falsely accused of rape. These children start the novel as young, innocent, children, but as the trial of Robinson …show more content…
According to Cathryn Whitehead, Lee had an older brother a few years older than her. Also, her father was a lawyer that defended black men that were accused of being guilty. Just like the story, Atticus also defended the same group of men. Lee’s mother, Frances Cunningham Finch Lee, is possibly the most peculiar piece of the similarity puzzle. The last name used in the story is thought to be drawn from her maiden name, Finch. Just like the story, Frances died when Lee was a relatively young age. Although Scout’s mother dies when Scout is at a very young age and Lee was somewhat older, it is still a very strange parallel. Another major family in the story, the Cunningham’s, could have possibly been drawn from Frances’s middle name. The only parallel that Harper Lee does not deny is the connection between Dill, and Lee’s lifelong friend, Truman Capote. Whitehead says, “Readers might find themselves glimpsing the adult Capote in the novel’s descriptions of Dill” (3). Lee describes Dill as a “curiosity” and his “duck fluff” hair. Coincidentally, Capote admitted to using Lee as inspiration for a character in one of his novels. This evidence could lead one to believe that Harper Lee modeled Scout after