Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), is considered a classic text because it consists of these elements; there is insight into the time in which it was set; the 1930’s, at the time of the pre-civil rights movement. It also fits into the place it is set in; in the state of Alabama in the fictional town of Maycomb. The many awards and praise it has received as well as the high intellectual and artistic quality, the exploration of universal themes, the memorable and relatable characters of this story, and also its addressing of issues, that even now in today’s society are still common. Racism is thoroughly explored and was deemed normal, white people believed they were ‘superior beings’ simply because of the color of their skin. Domestic abuse is one of the major themes, being the center of Atticus’s defense; that Mayella was abused by her father for kissing a black man. Scout shows her defiance towards sexism by doing things that most girls in that day would not do; she hates wearing dresses, and she does not want to be a lady when she grows up.
Racism is an important concept in To Kill a Mockingbird. Racism is one of the themes from this book which important concept still a problem in today’s society. Racism is demonstrated throughout the book as something that should be considered normal; ‘Now don’t be so confident, Mr. Jem, I ain’t ever seen any jury decide in favor of a colored man over a white man…’ ch 21. That is not the only way racism is shown in the book, when Atticus is asked to defend Tom Robinson, people think that he shouldn’t and start calling him a ‘nigger lover’. Scout doesn’t understand this though, so she asks Atticus and he explains that if he didn’t defend Tom then he wouldn’t be able to hold his head up in the street and he wouldn’t be able to tell Jem, and Scout what to do anymore:
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“If you shouldn’t be defending him, then why are you doin’ it?”
“For several reasons,” said Atticus. “The main one is, if I didn’t I couldn’t
hold up my head in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislature, I
couldn’t even tell you or Jem not to do something again.”
“You mean if you didn’t defend that man, Jem and me wouldn’t have to mind you
any more?”
“That’s about right.” ch 9.
Gender inequality is something that Scout hates, even though it seems she doesn’t know that it is sexism; ‘...”You want to grow up to be a lady, don’t you?” I said not particularly.’, … Domestic abuse is the main problem in this story, if Bob Ewell hadn’t abused his daughter Mayella for kissing Tom, then Mayella would not have been forced to lie about it, Tom would not have been sent to prison and he wouldn’t have died. Mr Ewell would not have died either. ‘What did her father do? We don’t know, but there is circumstantial evidence to indicate that Mayella Ewell was beaten savagely by someone who led almost exclusively with his left. We do know in part what Mr. Ewell did: he did what any God-fearing, persevering, respectable white man would do under the circumstances — he swore out a warrant, no doubt signing it with his left hand, and Tom Robinson now sits before you, having taken the oath with the only good hand he possesses — his right hand.’ Sexism and domestic abuse get a bit entangled in To Kill a Mockingbird in the way that if Mayella had been a boy she would most likely have been able to leave her house and escape her father’s abuse, but as she was a girl there was much less chance of her being able to leave and having a good job, especially in the class she was born in.
To Kill a Mockingbird has won many awards, and received recognition from critics, scholars, and even other authors with diverse viewpoints, some example of an award it has received is the Pulitzer Prize, the Pulitzer represents distinguished fiction written by an american author. The Pulitzer Prize represents not only the most famous but also the most illustrious award for literature. Bestsellers and Brotherhood awards, in 1961 The book received the Brotherhood Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews - renamed National Conference for Community and Justice in the 1990s- it is a group dedicated to promoting religious, racial, gender, and social equity and diversity. Bestsellers magazine opted to award the novel Paperback of the year in 1962. The novel also won the Alabama Library Association award in 1961. Harper Lee’s book continued to receive awards more than 40 years after it was published. American Libraries selected ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ as the best novel of the 1900s. President George W. Bush bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007, citing the influence of the novel on American culture as part of his reasoning. Scholars have noted that Lee also addresses issues (the themes of this novel) of class, courage, compassion, and gender roles. The book is widely taught in schools in the United States with lessons that emphasize tolerance and denounce prejudice. Author Mary McDonough Murphy, who collected individual impressions of To Kill a Mockingbird by several authors and public figures, calls the book 'an astonishing phenomenon'. In 2006, British librarians ranked the book ahead of the Bible as one 'every adult should read before they die'.
The novel To Kill A Mockingbird demonstrates the values of a classic text for the reasons stated above; its themes: of racism, sexism, and domestic abuse and its recognition from authors with diverse viewpoints, scholars, and critics, as well as many more. The widely shared human concerns and values are extremely important because they are still a problem in today’s society, though not so much as we read in Harper Lee’s novel. In 2007, her novel was ranked as the top-selling novel of all time in the Guinness Book of World Records, which just comes to show the amount of recognition and recommendations this book must have received to even be able to sell that many copies, let alone win all the awards it has won.
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