Scout – the daughter of Attorney Atticus Finch – spills out her entire childhood along with her brother, and their mate Dill in Harper Lee’s only novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird”. A complete depiction of the 1930s childhood, the struggle of a lawyer to uphold justice, the sufferings of his family for doing so, and a highly narrow-minded society of Maycomb County trying to deny it all – just for the sake of its discriminatory beliefs about certain types of people.
There, there! Now don’t assume that I’m blabbering about some monotonous, historical book describing some revolution. The book’s portrayal of their juvenile days is done through the thoughts of Scout, through her six to eight year age. The book takes us to a time when childhood was not simply about playing video games, watching cartoon/animated movies, or surfing the net. But when it was more about your imagination, adventures, playing outdoors and having your own tree-house. One can beautifully envisage those colourful and exciting days before their eyes. It is Scout’s enthralling description of these days that made me cling to the book and reach to the more serious parts.
She moves on to the events of their lives, which were related to their adventure concerning one of their neighbour – Boo Radley. Their father, his work, the Maycomb County’s social mind set. But that too is done in a very diverse way. Scout narrates how her family had to pay for her father’s defending someone rejected from the society. She does it all with the highly exhilarated style of a kid. A very agog tone – usually found in kids who are adventurous, and are slowly getting to learn the bitter truth of the society they belong to. Now you are thinking, how is it all related to a mockingbird? Well, I leave that to you to read and unearth!
The entire credit of Scout’s amazing description – which does go a bit down here and there, yes, I must admit that – goes to none other than Lee herself. Lee, blends the warm, playful life of the character Scout with the hard parts of society very smoothly.
The ending is very simple, but it is a personal favourite. I loved the quiet, yet strongly meaningful ending the novel had. All in all, I would say, it can be an amazing classic to immerse yourself in.