Historical Background

To Kill a Mockingbird

Учебно-методическое пособие для домашнего чтения по роману Харпер Ли “Убить пересмешника”

Introduction

The Life and Work of Harper Lee

Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama, the daughter of Amas Coleman Lee (an attorney) and Frances Fincher Lee. Harper had one brother, Edwin.

As children, Harper and Edwin became good friends with Truman Capote, who would later become well-known for his book In Cold Blood and for his short stories and novels, including Breakfast at Tiffany's. Capote spent about six years with cousins in Monroeville after his parents' divorce. Capote was berated by his mother because he had effeminate mannerisms; the former Miss Alabama sent him off to be raised by various aunts, cousins, and his grandmother. It is quite possible that Capote was the model for the character Dill in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.

Harper attended public schools in Monroeville and attended Huntington College in Montgomery from 1944-45. She spent the next four years at the University of Alabama where she studied law. Harper also spent one year at Oxford University.

Her education completed, Harper moved to New York, where she worked as a reservations clerk for Eastern Airlines and for British Overseas Airways in the 1950s. She gave up her job to devote her time to writing.

Harper wrote To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) very slowly. She usually began writing at noon and worked until evening; her goal was to complete only one or two pages per day. The book won her the Pulitzer Prize (1961), the Alabama Library Association Award (1961), and the annual Bestsellers' paperback award (1962).

Horton Foote adapted the book into a movie. The Motion Picture Guide, Volume T-V, 1927-1983, states that the screenplay …so wonderfully followed the spirit of Lee's novel that it prompted the author to remark, " I can only say that I am a happy author. They have made my story into a beautiful and moving motion picture. I am very proud and grateful.

The Academy of Motion Pictures presented Foote with the academy award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Gregory Peck starred as Atticus; he took the Academy Award for Best Actor.

To Kill a Mockingbird was the first-and last-book by Harper Lee.

Historical Background

To Kill a Mockingbird is set in Maycomb, a small Southern town in Alabama in the 1930s. The reader is not told the date until more than halfway through the book, but the references to the NRA, Hitler, and the quote " we have nothing to fear but fear itself" set the time in the reader's mind. The racially divided town and the strict class system help the reader to visualize life in the South during this time period.