Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee (b. 1926)

If Nelle Harper Lee ever wanted proof that fame has its drawbacks, she didn't have to look farther than her childhood neighbor, Truman Capote. After her enormously successful first novel, she has lived a life as private as Capote's was public.

Nelle-her first name is her grandmother's spelled backward-was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama. Her mother, Frances Cunningham Finch Lee, was a homemaker. Her father, Amasa Coleman Lee, practiced law. Before A.C. Lee became a title lawyer, he once defended two black men accused of murdering a white storekeeper. Both clients, a father and son, were hanged.

As a child, Harper Lee was an unruly tomboy. She fought on the playground. She talked back to teachers. She was bored with school and resisted any sort of conformity. The character of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird would have liked her. In high school Lee was fortunate to have a gifted English teacher, Gladys Watson Burkett, who introduced her to challenging literature and the rigors of writing well. Lee loved ninteenth-century British authors best, and once said that her ambition was to become "the Jane Austen of south Alabama."

Unable to fit in with the sorority she joined at the University of Alabama, she found a second home on the campus newspaper. Eventually she became editor-in-chief of the Rammer Jammer, a quarterly humor magazine on campus. She entered the law school, but she "loathed" it. Despite her father's hopes that she would become a local attorney like her sister Alice, Lee went to New York to pursue her writing.

She spent eight years working odd jobs before she finally showed a manuscript to Tay Hohoff, an editor at J.B. Lippincott. At this point, it still resembled a string of stories more than the novel that Lee had intended. Under Hohoff's guidance, two and a half years of rewriting followed. When the novel was finally ready for publication, the author opted for the name "Harper Lee" on the cover, because she didn't want to be misidentified as "Nellie."

To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960 to highly favorable reviews and quickly climbed the bestseller lists, where it remained for eighty-eight weeks. In 1961, the novel won the Pulitzer Prize.

Though fans of the book waited for a second novel, it never came. Lee later researched a book, similar to Capote's In Cold Blood (1966), about a part-time minister in Alexander City, Alabama, accused of killing five people for their insurance money and later himself murdered by a victim's relative. However, she dropped the project in the 1990s.

In the meantime, To Kill a Mockingbird has sold more than thirty million copies in eighteen languages. According to biographer Charles J. Shields, Lee was unprepared for the amount of personal attention associated with writing a bestseller. Ever since, she has led a quiet and guardedly private life. As Sheriff Tate says of Boo Radley, "draggin' him with his shy ways into the limelight-to me, that's a sin." So it would be with Harper Lee. From her, To Kill a Mockingbird is gift enough.

The Friendship of Harper Lee and Truman Capote

Nelle Harper Lee and Truman Capote became friends in the early 1930s as kindergarteners in Monroeville, Alabama. They lived next door to each other: Capote with aunts and uncles, Lee with her parents and three siblings. From the start they loved reading and recognized in each other "an apartness," as Capote later expressed it. When Lee's father gave them an old Underwood typewriter, they began writing original stories. Although Capote moved to New York City in the third grade to join his mother and stepfather, he returned to Monroeville most summers, eventually providing the inspiration for Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird.

In 1948 Capote published his first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms. Around that time, Lee quit law school and joined Capote in New York to work at becoming a writer, too. Years of menial jobs followed until To Kill a Mockingbird was ready for publication. Capote read the manuscript and made editorial suggestions. She, in her turn, accompanied him to Kansas to help research In Cold Blood.

After To Kill a Mockingbird was published, Capote resented Lee's success. He could have tried harder to dispel baseless rumors that the novel was as much his work as hers. Their friendship continued during the 1960s and '70s, but Capote's drug and alcohol abuse strained the relationship. Later he would stop publishing and sink into self-parody, sponging off high society and making endless rounds of the talk-show circuit. When Capote died in 1984, Lee confided to friends that she hadn't heard from him in years.

How the Novel Came to Be Written

Any claims for To Kill a Mockingbird as a book that changed history could not have seemed more far-fetched one winter night in 1958, as Nelle Harper Lee huddled in her outer-borough New York apartment trying to finesse her unruly, episodic manuscript into some semblance of a cohesive novel. All but drowning in multiple drafts of the same material, Lee suddenly threw open a window and scattered five years of work onto the dirty snow below.

Did Lee really intend to destroy To Kill a Mockingbird? We'll never know. Fortunately, in the next moment, she called her editor. Lippincott's formidable Tay Hohoff promptly sent her outside to gather all the pages back-thus rescuing To Kill a Mockingbird from the slush.

The novel had its origins in Lee's hometown of Monroeville, Alabama-the small, Southern town that the fictional Maycomb is based upon. Her father's unsuccessful defense of a black man and his son accused of murder, in addition to the Scottsboro Boys trials and another notorious interracial rape case, helped to shape Lee's budding social conscience and sense of a dramatic story.

Along with his legal practice, Lee's father published and edited the town newspaper. His regard for the written word impacted Lee's sensibility as surely as his respect for the law. Lee would name her idealized vision of her father after Titus Pomponius Atticus, a friend of the Roman orator Cicero renowned as, according to Lee, "a wise, learned and humane man." For a long time, Lee called her work in progress Atticus. This arguably marked an improvement over her first title, Go Set a Watchman, but once she fastened on To Kill a Mockingbird she did not look back.

Lippincott finally published the book on July 11, 1960, by which time an unprecedented four national mail-order book clubs had already selected it for their readers. The first line of the Washington Post's review echoed many similar notices that praised the novel for its moral impact: "A hundred pounds of sermons on tolerance, or an equal measure of invective deploring the lack of it, will weigh far less in the scale of enlightenment than a mere 18 ounces of new fiction bearing the title To Kill a Mockingbird."

Eighty weeks later, the novel still perched on the hardcover bestseller list. During that time, it had won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the hearts of American readers. One can't help wondering how literary history might have been different had Harper Lee thrown her manuscript out the window on a slightly windier night.

"Writing is a process of self-discipline you must learn before you can call yourself a writer. There are people who write, but I think they're quite different from people who must write.—Harper Lee from a 1964 interview

The Scottsboro Boys and To Kill a Mockingbird

One of the primary influences on Harper Lee's writing of To Kill a Mockinbird was a case of alleged rape that occured in Alabama in 1931 during the Great Depression. Some of the similarities are outlined at the site below.

http://library.thinkquest.org/12111/SG/SG5.html

Tom Robinson's trial bears striking parallels to the "Scottsboro Trial," one of the most famous-or infamous-court cases in American history. Both the fictional and the historical cases take place in the 1930s, a time of turmoil and change in America, and both occur in Alabama. In both, too, the defendants were African-American men, the accusers white women. In both instances the charge was rape. In addition, other substantial similarities between the fictional and historical trials become apparent.

A study of the Scottsboro trials will sharpen the reader's understanding of To Kill a Mockingbird. Both the historical trial(s) and the fictional one reflect the prevailing attitudes of the time, and the novel explores the social and legal problems that arise because of those attitudes.

First, it is essential to understand the social and economic climate of the 1930s. The country was in what has been called the Great Depression. Millions of people had lost their jobs, their homes, their businesses, or their land, and everything that made up their way of life. In every American city of any size, long "bread lines" of the unemployed formed to receive basic foodstuffs for themselves and their families, their only means of subsistence.

Many people lived in shanty towns, their shelters made of sheet metal and scrap lumber lean-tos. All over America it was common to see unemployed men and women riding the rails, looking for work, shelter, and food-for anything that offered some means of subsistence, some sense of dignity. It was a time when even a full-time employee, such as a mill worker, earned barely enough to live on. In fact, in 1931 a person working 55 or 60 hours a week in Alabama and other places would earn only about $156 annually.

The economic collapse of the 1930s resulted in ferocious rivalry for the very few jobs that became available. Consequently, the ill will between black and white people (which had existed ever since the Civil War) intensified, as each group competed with the other for the few available jobs. One result was that incidents of lynchings--primarily of African-Americans--continued. Here, lynching should be defined as the murder of a person by a group of people who set themselves up as judge, jury, and executioner outside the legal system.

It was in such a distressing social and economic climate that the Scottsboro case (and Tom Robinson's case) unfolded.

On March 25, 1931, several groups of white and black men and two white women were riding the rails from Tennessee to Alabama in various open and closed railroad cars designed to carry freight and gravel. At one point on the trip, the black and white men began fighting. One white man would later testify that the African-Americans started the fight, and another white man would later claim that the white men had started the fight. In any case, most of the white men were thrown off the train. When the train arrived at Paint Rock, Alabama, all those riding the rails-including nine black men, at least one white man, and the two white women--were arrested, probably on charges of vagrancy. The white women remained under arrest in jail for several days, pending charges of vagrancy and possible violation of the Mann Act. The Mann Act prohibited the taking of a minor across state lines for immoral purposes, like prostitution. Because Victoria Price was a known prostitute, the police were tipped off (very likely by the mother of the underaged Ruby Bates) that the two women were involved in a criminal act when they left Tennessee for Alabama. Upon leaving the train, the two women immediately accused the African-American men of raping them in an open railroad car (referred to as a "gondola") that was carrying gravel (or, as it was called, "chert").

The trial of the nine men began on April 6, 1931, only twelve days after the arrest, and continued through April 9, 1931. The chief witnesses included the two women accusers, one white man who had remained on the train and corroborated their accusations, another acquaintance of the women who refused to corroborate their accusations, the physician who examined the women, and the accused nine black men. The accused claimed that they had not even been in the same car with the women, and the defense attorneys also argued that one of the accused was blind and another too sickly to walk unassisted and thus could not have committed such a violent crime. On April 9, 1931, eight of the nine were sentenced to death; a mistrial was declared for the ninth because of his youth. The executions were suspended pending court appeals, which eventually reached the Supreme Court of the United States.

On November 7, 1932, the United States Supreme Court ordered new trials for the Scottsboro defendants because they had not had adequate legal representation.

On March 27, 1933, the new trials ordered by the Court began in Decatur, Alabama, with the involvement of two distinguished trial participants: a famous New York City defense lawyer named Samuel S. Leibowitz, who would continue to be a major figure in the various Scottsboro negotiations for more than a decade; and judge James E. Horton, who would fly in the face of community sentiment by the unusual actions he took in the summer of 1933.

In this second attempt to resolve the case, the trial for the first defendant lasted almost two weeks instead of only a few hours, as it had in 1931. And this time the chief testimony included the carefully examined report of two physicians, whose examination of the women within two hours of the alleged crime refuted the likelihood that multiple rapes had occurred. Testimony was also given by one of the women, Ruby Bates, who now openly denied that she or her friend, Victoria Price, had ever been raped. As a result of this, as well as of material brought out by investigations and by cross-examinations of the witnesses of Samuel Leibowitz, the character and honesty of accuser Victoria Price came under more careful scrutiny.

On April 9, 1933, the first of the defendants, Haywood Patterson, was again found guilty of rape and sentenced to execution. The execution was delayed, however; and six days after the original date set for Patterson's execution, one of the most startling events of the trial took place: local judge James Horton effectively overturned the conviction of the jury and, in a meticulous analysis of the evidence that had been presented, ordered a new trial on the grounds that the evidence presented did not warrant conviction. (It is probably not a coincidence that Judge Horton lost an election in the fall following his reversal of the jury's verdict.)

Despite judge Horton's unprecedented action, the second defendant, Clarence Norris, was tried in late 1933 and was found guilty as charged; but his execution was delayed pending appeal.

During this time all the defendants remained in prison, and not for two more years was any further significant action taken as Attorney Leibowitz filed appeals to higher courts. Finally, on April 1, 1935, the United States Supreme Court reversed the convictions of Patterson and Norris on the grounds that qualified African-Americans had been systematically excluded from all juries in Alabama, and that they had been specifically excluded in this case.

However, even this decision by the Supreme Court was not the end of the trials, for on May 1, 1935, Victoria Price swore out new warrants against the nine men.

Primary documents related to the case afford several avenues of comparison between the Scottsboro trials and Tom Robinson's trial in To Kill a Mockingbird. This is in addition to the more obvious parallels of time (1930s), place (Alabama), and charges (rape of white women by African-American men). First, the threat of lynching is common to both cases. Second, there is a similarity between the novel's Atticus Finch and the real-life judge James E. Horton, both of whom acted in behalf of black men on trial in defiance of their communities' wishes at a time of high feeling. In several instances, the words of the Alabama judge remind the reader of Atticus Finch's address to the jury and his advice to his children. Third, the accusers in both instances were very poor, working-class women who had secrets that the charges of rape were intended to cover up. Therefore, the veracity or believability of the accusers in both cases became an issue.

In order to keep straight the people and events in this complicated case, a brief list of the main characters and a brief chronology of main events follow.

Johnson, Claudia Durst. Understanding To Kill A Mockingbird. The Greenwood Publishing, Inc. Wesport, CT:©1994.

For a fuller examination of the Scottsboro case go to the following links:
http://library.thinkquest.org/12111/scottsboro/scottsbo.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/scottsboro/index.html

April Fools

Just in case you guys wanted to know, here's a couple of videos that explain what blogs and wikis are. By the way, thankyou to those who sent me their emails.

Strange Fruit

The photograph that was cited by the songwriter as the inspiration for the song: Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, August 7, 1930.

Strange Fruit by Lewis Allan

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

"Strange Fruit" is a song performed most famously by Billie Holiday. It condemned American racism, particularly the lynching of African Americans that had occurred chiefly in the South but also in all regions of the United States. The "strange fruit" referred to in the song are the bodies of African American men being hanged during a lynching. They contrast the pastoral scenes of the South with the ugliness of racist violence. The lyrics were so chilling that Holiday later said "The first time I sang it, I thought it was a mistake. There wasn't even a patter of applause when I finished. Then a lone person began to clap nervously. Then suddenly everyone was clapping and cheering."

Here is a video that outlines the story of the song.



Go to the following site for more information about lynchings. http://www.strangefruit.org/

Tug Dumbly

Here are some links to pages that feature the poetry and thoughts of Tug Dumbly:

http://www.abc.net.au/humouraustralia/oldfavs/tug.htm

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=tug+dumbly&aq=f

http://www.musicaustralia.org/apps/MA?function=showDetail&currentMapsRecord=NAMO~3063&itemSeq=5&total=35&&returnFunction=searchResults&scope=scope&simpleTerm=spoken&sessionId=reuseSearch66F6FAB20DB5285A6AC229DFD854DEF21232110368558

Masters of War

Masters Of War by Bob Dylan

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

Copyright ©1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

Autopsy Room Four by Stephen King

Recently we read the Stephen King short story Autopsy Room Four and I promised I would put up the video of a television dramatisation. You will have to go to YouTube for the remaining parts, but here is part 1: