To Kill a Mockingbird
Sep. 6th, 2024 09:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragoness_eI read To Kill A Mockingbird over Labor Day holidays for the first time.
It was not the story I thought it was from all the Atticus Finch quotes around the internet. I expected an uplifting courtroom drama; I got a bittersweet coming-of-age story about a young girl growing up in Depression-era small-town Alabama. The bitter: good guys didn't win; the innocent man died instead of going free, and the town is full of racist assholes for whom Justice is another "Whites Only" thing. The sweet: the protagonist learned not to judge people based on gossip, and that not everyone was a racist asshole.
Alas, at my age, "coming-of-age" stories have all the appeal of a soggy dog biscuit. I outgrew them long ago. The stark portrayal of the racism and the unwritten codes of how the races were permitted to interact was interesting--as were the exceptions: the rich landowner who lived with his black wife and mixed-race children and didn't give a damn what people thought of him. Even he pretended to be a drunkard to provide an excuse for his relationship, to protect his family.
It was not the story I thought it was from all the Atticus Finch quotes around the internet. I expected an uplifting courtroom drama; I got a bittersweet coming-of-age story about a young girl growing up in Depression-era small-town Alabama. The bitter: good guys didn't win; the innocent man died instead of going free, and the town is full of racist assholes for whom Justice is another "Whites Only" thing. The sweet: the protagonist learned not to judge people based on gossip, and that not everyone was a racist asshole.
Alas, at my age, "coming-of-age" stories have all the appeal of a soggy dog biscuit. I outgrew them long ago. The stark portrayal of the racism and the unwritten codes of how the races were permitted to interact was interesting--as were the exceptions: the rich landowner who lived with his black wife and mixed-race children and didn't give a damn what people thought of him. Even he pretended to be a drunkard to provide an excuse for his relationship, to protect his family.
