To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee: Literary Analysis

An author "should write about what he knows and write truthfully”; Harper Lee embodied her own quote’s advice when writing To Kill a Mockingbird. There is much to learn from the mono-published Lee as she, in her one and only published work (until July 14, 2015, that is), was able to weave a greatly intertwining web of her own experiences, thrilling narrative, and themes of outcasts, racial equality, youth, and forgiveness. As a first-time writer, she was able to garner more success than many other poly-published authors can dream of, but she did not expect such a large response. She wrote the book she felt was necessary. No more. No less. The simply complex nature of the novel was influenced from many different areas of her life, as well as …show more content…
She describers her childhood spent with her siblings and future author of non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, Truman Capote, very simply in a poor family having to make her own fun, acting as “readers and [they] would transfer everything [they] had seen on the printed page to the backyard in the form of high drama” (Anderson). This clearly resembles the frantic antics of Jem, Scout, and Dill in her novel, but more than anything it resembles the lives of all children of her background. She formed an infinitely relatable narrative appealing to the inner sense of youth and adventure within every person, qualities she certainly dabbled with as a young girl. Scout’s absent mother and upstanding, lawyer father even parallel the respective roles in Lee’s life as her father, Amasa Lee, was a lawyer and her mother, Frances Finch (seemingly the inspiration for the eponymous family of the novel) suffered from a metal condition making her “emotionally absent” in Lee’s life ("Harper Lee" Paragon House). To Kill a Mockingbird is not an autobiography, but certainly is an acumination of Lee’s experiences melded together to form a story of the utmost importance teaching acceptance and morality to its readers. So many personal events led to creation of the wonderfully crafted story, but it was released in 1960 in the heart of the civil rights movement, an obvious outlet for the book to associate itself, and the book was met with immediate success (Anderson). This book was not only loved at the time; it was essential to the times. In a era where a race was so oppressed still that they had to openly protest and call action, this book embodied what was needed in the world through its