One of the most specific similarities between To Kill a Mockingbird and the author are the names of her characters. Many of the names found in the book stem from the maiden name of her mother, Frances Cunningham Finch Lee (Flanchman). The main character’s family name of Finch is easy to spot, but several other characters claim their title from this, including Scout’s rotten cousin Francis and the Cunningham family. Lee followed a similar rule with Scout and Jem’s father, Atticus. Not only is his name very similar to her own father’s first name of Amasa, but his character corresponds with him as well. Amasa Lee and Atticus Finch are quite literally cut from the same cloth. Harper Lee remarked once that Atticus was a direct representation of
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For one, Lee’s older brother was four years her senior, which not so ironically is the same distance between Jem and Scout. But more significant, as journalist for the magazine Mystery Scene Art Taylor said in his 2007 article “Do the Right Thing: Harper Lee and to Kill a Mockingbird,” is “her lifelong friendship with another writer who spent part of his childhood in Monroeville…[and] is famously the basis for the character of Dill.” Truman Capote, just like his fictitious counterpart, spent many long vacations with his dispersed family in Alabama. The two apparently also share a similar appearance, persona, and a complicated partnership with their childhood companions (Harper Lee and Scout Finch respectively). Arguably the most profound parallel, though, is between the two storytellers …show more content…
Many academics equate the roots of To Kill a Mockingbird to the famous Scottsboro Trail, in which nine black boys were accused of raping two white women on a train in the early 1930’s (Taylor). This would make sense considering Lee would have been close to the same age as Scout at the time, and the case originated in her own state of Alabama. However, there is another case that could have impacted her even more. Author Charles Shields said in his book Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, which was quoted by Art Taylor in his article, that a different indecent involving the rape of a white woman by a black man occurred in Lee’s hometown, and was likely to affect the author on a deeper level. Whether this was true for Lee or not, there are other ties to her hometown in her
For one, Lee’s older brother was four years her senior, which not so ironically is the same distance between Jem and Scout. But more significant, as journalist for the magazine Mystery Scene Art Taylor said in his 2007 article “Do the Right Thing: Harper Lee and to Kill a Mockingbird,” is “her lifelong friendship with another writer who spent part of his childhood in Monroeville…[and] is famously the basis for the character of Dill.” Truman Capote, just like his fictitious counterpart, spent many long vacations with his dispersed family in Alabama. The two apparently also share a similar appearance, persona, and a complicated partnership with their childhood companions (Harper Lee and Scout Finch respectively). Arguably the most profound parallel, though, is between the two storytellers …show more content…
Many academics equate the roots of To Kill a Mockingbird to the famous Scottsboro Trail, in which nine black boys were accused of raping two white women on a train in the early 1930’s (Taylor). This would make sense considering Lee would have been close to the same age as Scout at the time, and the case originated in her own state of Alabama. However, there is another case that could have impacted her even more. Author Charles Shields said in his book Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, which was quoted by Art Taylor in his article, that a different indecent involving the rape of a white woman by a black man occurred in Lee’s hometown, and was likely to affect the author on a deeper level. Whether this was true for Lee or not, there are other ties to her hometown in her