by Melchi Pagdanganan
Why would someone kill a mockingbird?
I bet you have asked this question many times after reading Harper Lee’s book title: To Kill a Mockingbird somewhere in a bookstore while you scanned titles on dusty shelves, or when you scrolled through your Facebook feed because it quite made a noise just after a Philippine presidential candidate mentioned this as her favorite book, and on times when a bookworm from your class simply shared his favorite quote from the book.
I get it. Because I have asked the question too many times, too, taking the title literally, forgetting that it could mean deeper.
But why would someone read something about killing a mockingbird?
And questions keep tugging, whispering, mockingbirds, mockingbirds, what the heck are mockingbirds? Until everything you ask will sound like the book is mocking you for not buying it from that old bookstore, or for refraining from borrowing it from your classmate to feed your curiosity on why Harper Lee chose the title as it is.
To Kill a Mockingbird, when read, sounds brutal with a touch of innocence in it, doesn’t it?
Because that’s what the book is all about.
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is a story about racism, inequality, and injustices told through Scout Finch’s eyes, a six-year-old girl who lives in Maycomb County, Alabama, with her brother Jeremy “Jem” Finch, and her father Atticus Finch.
We are aware of the ongoing advocacies, movements, and protests for blacks since time immemorial, and Harper Lee will take us back to that time through Atticus, a lawyer who defends a black man, Tom Robinson, who is wrongly accused of raping a white woman. These circumstances will then expose Scout and Jem to the realities of life which puzzled them at first because life to them is playing during summers with their new friend Dill, and trying to peek at Boo Radley who never went out of his house that he was regarded as a legend by kids who never saw him.
Life for Scout is reading books with Atticus every night and watching him read the newspaper all the time. For Jem, life is not picking fistfights with everyone who called their daddy a “nigger lover”, and certainly, life to them is not getting on death row when they were almost killed by Bob Ewell, the father of Mayella Ewell who accused Tom of taking advantage of her.
What makes the book relevant even after its first publication in 1960 is that injustices continue to exist, especially to those regarded as mockingbirds of the human race.
While the book, especially Atticus, faced controversies and debates for being racist, especially on its sequel Go Set a Watchman (which I plan to read one of these days), I can’t help but think that maybe Harper Lee set all of these in a six-year-old’s eyes because we are too battered by injustices that we become six-year-olds with twinkling eyes at the sight of any iconic man saving the world for us.
But I love the warmth and comfort the book temporarily gave me, the same as when Boo Radley secretly wrapped a blanket over Scout’s shoulders. I also love how Boo saved Scout and Jem in the end from being killed, like he was telling us, without speaking a word, that we were still six-year-olds who still needed to live and grow and look at everything on a different footing.
Even when that means burning the fine image To Kill a Mockingbird has built for decades.
Because turning a blind eye to a book’s true message to retain our comfort is like killing a mockingbird, isn’t it?
After all, we will never truly understand something or someone, according to Atticus, unless we climb inside of their skin and walk around in it.
To Kill a Mockingbird Characters
Photos from To Kill a Mockingbird (Movie)
TAGS: Book review, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, Atticus Finch, Bookworm
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