Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Who is the greatest American hero? Brad Pitt? Arnold? John Wayne, James Dean, Clint Eastwood…? Answer: the hero of Harper Lee’s immortal novel To Kill a Mockingbird: Atticus Finch. Forget about Captain Ahab, Rambo, Rocky, Mike Hammer, Rooster Cogburn…or if you are a political junkie: George Washington and Abe Lincoln. Pound for pound Americans prefer Atticus over anybody who can be somebody. In our country when we don’t assist in a crime we may be prosecuted under the “depraved indifference” statutes. Ordinary citizens tend not to get involved, and that is understandable even though morally indefensible. Yes, ordinary citizens. But Atticus Finch was no ordinary citizen but an extraordinary man─a hero─or as we say in New York City─a mensch! When a man sees injustice when others don’t, that makes him a prototype. And that is what Harper Lee created, a prototype of a man who will be revered for the ages to come by both adults and children. Whether we read the book or see the film, we know we are in the presence of justice, love, and fairness. What makes the story even more attractive is that it is told by a child─the endearing Scout. In this respect, Harper Lee joins the company of other literary geniuses (Mark Twain, Dickens, and Charlotte Bronte) who made us see the world as children do: unfiltered by age and experience. In a way I am happy that Harper Lee didn’t write another masterpiece. One is enough. Augustine, City of God Austen J, Pride and Prejudice Austen J, "Marriage Proposals and Me" Austen J, Emma Borges, The Aleph C. Bronte, Jane Eyre Burroughs E,Tarzan Cervantes, Don Quijote Chaucer, Wife of Bath Coelho P,The Alchemist Coyle H, They Are Soldiers Dante, New Life Dickens C, David Copperfield Dostoevsky, Crime&Punishment ConanDoyle,Hound of Baskervilles Dubner S, Superfreakonomics DuMaurier D, Rebecca Ellis B. E. American Psycho Fitzgerald S, Great Gatsby Flaubert G, Madame Bovary Fleming I,Doctor No Freud S, Leonardo Da Vinci Friedan B, Feminine Mystique GarciaMarquez, Of Love & OtherDemons GarciaMarquez,OneHundredYrs Guerrero M,ThePoison Pill Grass G, The Tin Drum Harris T, Hannibal Rising Heidegger M,House of Being Ishiguro K, Remains of The Day Johnson S,Rasselas Kafka,Metamorphosis Kosinski J, The Painted Bird Lee H,To Kill a Mockingbird McBain Ed,Gutter and Grave Murakami H,Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Nabokov V, Lolita Meyer, S, Twilight Ortega,Dehumanization of Art Poe E A, Gordon Pym Prose F, Reading Like a Writer Rushdie S,Midnight Children Sabatini R, Scaramouche Spark M, Prime of Miss Brodie Stendhal, Red and Black Sterne L,Tristram Shandy Stevenson R, Dr.Jekyll & Mr.Hyde Stoker B, Dracula Thackeray W,History of Pendennis Tolstoy L, Anna Karenina Trollope A, Autobiography Unamuno M, Tragic Sense of Life Voltaire, Candide Webb J, Fields of Fire Wharton E, The House of Mirth Woolf V, To The Lighhouse The secrets of 'no-doze' prose: Mary Duffy's Sentence Openers Image via Wikipedia Lindsey Vonn Back to main page

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