For this year’s Goodreads Reading Challenge, I rediscovered a 20th century classic novel. If I’d read the Pulitzer Prize winner, To Kill a Mockingbird previously, I don’t recall doing so. But, an etched memory of actor Gregory Peck portraying iconic lawyer figure Atticus Finch remains with me decades after seeing the film version. I’d also attended a staged play of To Kill a Mockingbird a few years back. So, I recently read Harper Lee’s tome, a 50th anniversary copy plucked off the shelf one of those library stations that sprung up in neighborhood during the pandemic. To Kill a Mockingbird is considered by many literary critics and librarians as the best American novel of the last century. By contrast, it’s also fallen into the category of banned books during its time of publication, and, most recently, in Biloxi, Mississippi’s school curriculum for eighth graders.
According to The Straits Time online reports, To Kill a Mockingbird continues to sell one million copies annually with translations into 40 languages. Yet the controversy keeps it off certain bookshelves and open to criticism. Also, more recent reviews cast dispersions on the story due to its treatment of racism and the point of view of a white, female Southerner a la the six-year-old protagonist nicknamed Scout. It’s easy to pierce the thin veil of Scout’s narrative and peer into the prevailing attitudes of racial intolerance that rings out on practically every page of the story. Is it cringeworthy? If it is, we’d like to think it’s due to Harper Lee’s sensitivity to the harsh reality of prejudice, narrow-minded thinking. But, in all honesty, I can’t exonerate the author completely even though she’s pointing out and exposing the evils of hatred and vitriol harbored by many of the Southern whites in her story.
A majority of critics note that the story is rich in symbolism. But, for me, Harper Lee portrays to the readers a two-dimensional world. The whites are malicious and prone to ignorance, intolerance, and violence. The blacks are powerless, vulnerable, isolated, and fearful of crossing a line. Okay, and I get that the novel was written in 1960 and set in 1930’s Alabama. And I understand the blatant message: racial injustice is an evil that can never be justified. But, after reading the book, I don’t see Atticus Finch as the great American hero. He’s a man that believes everyone should have his or her day in court. He’s fighting for the defendant accused of rape, because he believes the character, Tom Robinson, should have the closest experience to a fair trial possible, even though all the cards are stacked against him. And Atticus treats everyone with respect. I can only surmise as a reader the author’s intent that everyone should be treated with respect. But I get the notion of a subtext relaying “as long as they know their place in society.” Am I too critical of the author as she informs us about her characters and the world they live in? And then there’s Scout. For a six-year-old she has the vocab of a southern woman who studied law. Well, that’s the world Harper Lee grew up in and the story mirrors much of her own personal family life. Scout’s voice goes from the childish, naïve ponderings of a six-year-old to the literary and sophisticated voice of the author herself. Who’s the real Scout and is Harper Lee likened to the Wizard of Oz behind the magic curtain? Are we hearing her thoughts? I realize, as authors, we lend ourselves to our characters to some degree. It’s part of the writing process. But it’s best to keep a safe distance from these created characters or an openminded attitude, unless the author is entrenched in cultural perceptions or experiences that it can’t be overcome. Or maybe the intended theme defines or supports the story world.
And for any one of these reasons, and many more, To Kill a Mockingbird should not be banned, nor any book that offers a glimpse into the times a story is written or an insight into the author due to his or her own life that can offer readers invaluable discussions. Banning books dissolves and obscures lessons we can learn from the past.
But what I consider even more egregious is changing up the language of well-established literature. Consider Mark Twain’s classic tale Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that was scrubbed to eliminate offensive words, specifically the “N” word and replace it with “slave” in an edition proposed by NewSouth Books. Undoubtedly, the language is offensive. It was even considered repugnant by some librarians and literary critics when it was first published in 1884. But one scholar quoted in 2011 by Publishers Weekly in defense of the revision stated. “… Race matters in these books. It’s a matter of how you express that in the 21st century.”
Book banning is nothing new but it’s a bell weather for a different kind of intolerance that says we aren’t intelligent enough to discern for ourselves what is questionable and, at times, needs to be confronted. So what’s worse? An outright ban of a book or changing its language? Either way we miss out on learning from the past, informing the present, and shaping the future.