[chengiz]

It seems everybody here loves "To Kill a Mockingbird". To me, it's a well written but ultimately shallow novel. Finch is your typical woman's fantasy man: great at fatherhood, great at his work, morally upright, totally scrupulous, and yes, best shot in the county. The black people in the novel rarely get a voice, except one of platitudes, and the race relations stuff is totally black and white (excuse the pun), with no particular insight. It counts as literature only because of its propitious timing around the Civil Rights movement. It's a fine school reading list book but that is all it is.

[kitbrennan]

I think you missed the point. The brilliance in To Kill a Mockingbird is the way it makes us feel the confusion felt by a six year old looking at an adult world.

At the time, many people did see race relations as 'black or white', and people thought there was a perfectly legitimate debate to be had about whether someone that was black was 'less of a man' that someone that was white. What Scout really shows us is that children are not born with this pre-conceived notion, and are generally confused by it... and we should be too.

To address your specific points: the black people were not supposed to have much of a voice in the novel, because black people didn't have much of a voice back then. There wasn't much insight (in terms of speeches or things said) around race relations, because to a six year old girl the insight doesn't matter. All that matters is one of fairness - that a child cannot fathom how crazy adults must be to not give black people a voice or to treat them differently, just because of their skin.

PS: In response to your comment about Finch, you're right. Finch is perfect - because he's Scout's father - and most six year old girls do think of their father as perfect; if Scout hadn't been written that way then her character would have seemed shallow and wrong.

PPS: I've clearly thought about this too much and what I've wrote seems a bit preachy - as with any book, it all comes down to personal taste.

[fnordfnordfnord]

>It's a fine school reading list book but that is all it is.

The book has been banned from many schools.

Racial slurs, profanity, and blunt dialogue about rape have led people to challenge its appropriateness in libraries and classrooms so often that, today, the American Library Association reports that To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most challenged classics of all time and still ranks at number 21 of the 100 most frequently challenged books of 2000–2009. Even as recently as 2011 and amid 326 other book challenges for that year, it ranks in the top ten more than 50 years after seeing print.

http://bannedbooks.world.edu/2012/07/30/banned-books-awarene...

http://www.marshall.edu/library/bannedbooks/books/killmockin...

[a8da6b0c91d]

> a fine school reading list book

I'm pretty sure a book can't get on those lists any more without a theme of oppression or alienation. I'm not joking. Almost everything they make kids read any more is somehow about injustice or bigotry.

Apropos Southern Gothic lit, I'm chuckling at the thought of a typical 9th grade english teacher trying to tackle a much better book like Flannery Oconnor's "The Violent Bear it Away." Doesn't quite fit the essay templates they raise the kids on.

[cbd1984]

Then you have High School AP English, where "As I Lay Dying" is a standard text.

I think "Catch-22" is as well.

Say what you will about those books, they're not necessarily essay-ready in the same way "To Kill A Mockingbird" is.

[seeingfurther]

Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that To Kill a Mockingbird spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code of honor and conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of all Southerners ~ Harper Lee

You need to read it again bub.