#maycomb

I finally finished To Kill A Mockingbird! Before October ended, just as I had hoped as well.

[Image desc: Left image: The cover page of the 2010 ed. of To Kill A Mockbird by Harper Lee. The image features the silhouette of a young girl swinging on a tire swing, with the author and title to the left.

Right image: the bottom of the last page (page 309) of To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. These images are my own.]

So today I read from chapter 25 until the end of the book! The last couple of chapters were actually really good, I think the book ended really nicely. But before that!

There’s this part around chapter 25, maybe 26 where Scout summarises the events of the book through seasons, which is quite a nice way of the character looking back and also a nice reminder for the reader about how much has actually happened throughout the book.

The last few chapters actually take place on Hallowe’en, which was a nice coincidence I suppose! Mrs Meriweather holds a pageant, in which Scout has the honour of being a Ham. Although it’s this which leads to Scout and Jem walking home late at night by themselves...

(spoilers ahead!!) (seriously!!!!)

Jem and Scout are attacked by an unknown man, thanks to Scout’s awkwardly shaped costume we have no details on who he could possibly be. Thanks to a stranger, Scout and an unconscious Jem make it back home. The doctor is called to help Jem, as well as Sherrif Heck Tate who investigates the scene, finding Mr Bob Ewell’s body, a knife through his ribs.

Two extremely interesting things happen here, and I’m a little mad that they only happen so late in the book.

Atticus is faced with the problem that a) his son has, effectively, killed a man, and b) the Sherriff is willing to hide it. Atticus, a lawyer through and through, is willing to have Jem go to court, have everything put in the open and allow Jem to continue with his life (for the most part), weighing up the conditions of self defence, the dark night etc.

On the other hand, Sherriff Heck Tate is willing to say everything’s an accident, that Ewell fell on his knife and let everyone in town be all that much happier about it.

The second thing which actually made me gasp is that we finally get to meet Boo Radley. There’s a couple things I wanted to say about this. Firstly, the way Scout acts towards him compared to how she would first act even discussing the Radleys shows how much she’s matured throughout the book - about a couple years time period I think - which was really nice to see. For so many weeks in the summer holidays would her, Jem and Dill make ‘plays’ about the mysterious Boo Radley, and now she’s treating him with respect, treating him as if she passed him every afternoon.

Secondly, it was really satisfying to finally meet this character of Boo Radley. Even though it wasn’t the main focus of the book, it was nice to have a continuous mystery. Almost, something to grab your attention long enough to bring you to the main ‘action’, is then forgotten - for the most part - during the resolve and is then nicely solved at the end, bringing the story to a neater end. Which I think is really clever.

So my thoughts on this book?

I think it’s really good. As a history student I learnt about the Civil Rights Movement in America in the 50s and as well we discussed the slave trade, but I don’t think we ever learnt about the times inbetween that. History at high school - at least in the UK - generally covers big events, so learning about attitudes or themes isn’t really covered. I’m not saying that this book is a perfect history of the south in the 1930s, and I really wouldn’t know, but I still definitely gained a much better understanding of those attitudes they held, and unfortunately the attitudes that people do still hold.

I don’t know if there is any discourse about this book, or about any of the things said in this book, so please let me know if there is, but I do think this is a really good book. I definitely recommend this book if you haven’t read it yet.

Thanks for reading!

Harper Lee