To Kill a Mockingbird

1. To Kill a Mockingbird Origin of the Novel

2. Introduction – Autobiography? • An autobiography is simply defined as a story about a person's life, written by that person. • Authors write autobiographies to share their life experiences, ideals, and tribulations. • Some autobiographers depict events accurately, but most are extremely subjective and reflect only their opinion. • Many argue that the novel To Kill a Mockingbird is an autobiography. • It has been pointed out that there many similiarities within the childhoods of the author of To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) and the young 6 year old narrator Scout Finch.

3. Nellie (Harper) Lee vs. Scout Finch – (in terms of their character) • Nellie Lee was remembered by one classmate as a "deflater of phoniness." • Scout was known to speak her mind. • Harper Lee was an avid reader as a child • Scout reads before she enters school and reads the Mobile Register newspaper in the first grade. • Both tomboys as children

4. Setting • Lee grew up during the 1930’s (during the Great Depression) in Monroeville, a small town in southwest Alabama. • Scout grew up in Maycomb, which was located in rural southern Alabama, during the 1930’s. • Maycomb county was very much like Monroeville, the town was so small everyone knew each other's business. • Due to the Great Depression, poverty was a subject that affected the people in Maycomb county, as it did historically to the people in Monroeville during this time period.

5. Family Ties • Harper Lee’s father, Amasa Lee, was a valued citizen of Monroeville. He practiced law, was a member of the State Legislature from 1926 to 1938. • In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout’s father, Atticus Finch, is an attorney who serves in the state legislature in Alabama. • Lee’s mother was an invalid, who, it seems, suffered either from an undiagnosed mental illness; she did very little mothering of Nelle, who was largely left to a maid's ministrations (much as Scout is in To Kill a Mockingbird ). • Lee’s older brother (Edwin Lee) and young neighbor (Truman Capote) were playmates. • Scout’s older brother (Jem) and young neighbor (Dill) are playmates.

6. Childhood Pal • Author Truman Capote was Lee's next-door neighbor from 1928 to 1933. • Lee met Truman Capote one summer when the 5-year-old boy was living with his aunts next door. Bonded by what Capote called their "apartness," the children began to write stories on an Underwood typewriter Lee's father gave them. • Scout met Dill when she was the same age as Harper was when she met Capote. They make up stories together and play out them out along with Scout’s brother Jem.

7. The Scottsboro Trials • Lee was six years old when the Scottsboro trials were widely covered in national, state and local newspapers. • Scout was six years old when the trial of Tom Robinson takes place.