Is This Book Racist?To Kill a Mockingbird Chapter 12

Is To Kill a Mockingbird racist?

• According to the American Library Institute, To Kill a Mockingbird was the 21st most "challenged" book of the last decade. • Objections included the suggestion

that the book "represents institutionalised racism in the guise of good literature" and that the use of racial epithets in the text constitutes an act of racial prejudice in itself.Akin Ajayi, The Guardian, July 9, 2010

Is To Kill a Mockingbird racist?

A report (by the African Canadian Division of the Nova Scotia Department of Education) "laid out the community's concerns":

In this novel, African-Canadian students are presented with language that portrays all the stereotypical generalizations that demean them as a people. While the White student and the White teacher many misconstrue it as language of an earlier era or the way it was, this language is still widely used today and the book serves as tool to reinforce its usage even further. . . .

The terminology in this novel subjects students to humiliating experiences that rob them of their self-respect and the respect of their peers. The word 'Nigger' is used 48 times. . . .

Source: http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2010/07/warmly-embrace-racist-novel-to-kill.html

External Evidence: Author’s Intent?• The last time Lee spoke to the press was in

2006, when she granted a brief interview to a New York Times reporter at an awards ceremony for a high-school essay contest on the subject of To Kill a Mockingbird.• Lee is said to handwrite every interview

request she refuses. The author told the New York Times in 2006 that if she were to send out a form response, it would say "Hell, no".Alison Flood, The Guardian, June 28, 2010

External Evidence: Author Intent?

“I would like to leave some record of the kind of life that existed in a very small world. I hope to do this in several novels, to chronicle something that seems to be very quickly going down the drain.”

Harper Lee in 1964

External Evidence: Author’s Intent?

John Green, author, The Fault in Our Stars

Finding Clues: Purpose

The author’s purpose can be to: • Inform: to teach the reader something • Persuade: wants the reader to take action • Describe: lots of details about an item or

event • Entertain: humorous or engaging,

suspensefulSource:

http://englishteachersfriend.com/uploads/4/8/3/7/4837035/authorspurposepovtonepropaganda.pdf

Finding Clues: Point of View

• The author’s point of view (DO NOT CONFUSE WITH NARRATIVE POINT OF VIEW) • Point of view directly relates to the

author’s belief about a subject or topic. • Authors can be biased (they favor

one side over another) or objective (see both sides)

Source: http://englishteachersfriend.com/uploads/4/8/3/7/4837035/authorspurposepovtonepropaganda.pdf

Finding Clues: Tone

• The word choice and writing style an author uses creates an attitude about a topic. • Remember: Tone is different from

description. A sad topic can be presented in a neutral tone.

Source: http://englishteachersfriend.com/uploads/4/8/3/7/4837035/authorspurposepovtonep

ropaganda.pdf

Finding Clues: External Context

Its subject matter was anything but commercial fodder for the time. Brown V Board of Education,the landmark case that formally outlawed segregation in American schools had been decided just six years earlier; racial discrimination still remained a fact of life for many. The court case at the centre of To Kill a Mockingbird shows up the absurdities – and the horror – of segregation and racial bias.

Akin Ajayi, The Guardian, July 9, 2010

Fires of injustice ... Alabama patrolmen guard a burning Greyhound bus after a mob of white supremacists attacked it on May 14, 1961. Photograph: Bettmann/CORBIS Bettmann/CORBIS

Finding Clues: Contextual Evidence

Then there's the question of perspective. To Kill a Mockingbird is seen through the eyes – if not quite told in the voice – of six-year-old Scout. What the book presents is an unmediated portrait of a specific time and place, as experienced with the naivety of a small child. In this sense, perceptions of slightness in the development of the principal black characters – Calpurnia, the family cook for instance, or Tom Robinson, wrongly accused of rape – are a product of Scout's engagement with life in Maycomb County, rather than a blinkered paternalism on the part of Lee.

Akin Ajayi, The Guardian, July 9, 2010