To Kill a Mockingbird
begins with - "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow…When enough
years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his
accident. I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said
it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave
us the idea of making Boo Radley come out". Only after one finishes Mockingbird does
the significance of Jem’s broken arm become apparent.
The book is a sweet and affectionate portrait of growing up in the vanished world of small
town Alabama. The sweet façade peels away to reveal a rotten, rural underside
filled with social lies, prejudice and ignorance. (The ’mockingbird’ represents
innocence. Like hunters who kill mockingbirds for sport, people kill innocence, or other people
who are innocent, without thinking about what they are doing.)
"…If there’s just one kind of folks, why can’t they get along with each other? If
they’re all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I’m beginning
to understand something. I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in
the house all this time…it’s because he wants to stay inside."
A masterpiece. This is all I’ve got to say.