This post written by member Julia Franks presents another view of teaching To Kill a Mockingbird from both last week鈥檚 post and from some of the public comments on the to the text.
I鈥檝e been trying to pull from the curriculum for decades鈥攁nd not for the reasons recently discussed in Mississippi or because of its 鈥渦ncomfortable鈥� language鈥攂ut because the messages about race and the status quo are so very outdated.
Many people love the book because of its wonderful central metaphor: 鈥淵ou never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.鈥� But let鈥檚 examine the biggest metaphor in the book, the title. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a sin to kill a mockingbird,鈥� the venerable Atticus Finch tells his daughter Scout. Miss Maudie repeats it. 鈥淢ockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us.鈥�
Mockingbirds are best known for imitating other birdsongs (or car alarms). In other words, they don鈥檛 make an original contribution, but they do 鈥渕ake music for us to enjoy鈥� and 鈥渟ing their hearts out for us.鈥� Above all, they鈥檙e not hurting us.
So, who are the 鈥渕ockingbirds鈥� in the story? Clearly Boo Radley, the mentally ill recluse, qualifies. Another obvious candidate is Mrs. Dubose, the old lady addicted to opioids. Both characters are gentle, though ineffective in formal society. But, of course, the main 鈥渕ockingbird鈥� in the story is Tom Robinson, a kind young African American man wrongly accused of rape. Even the publisher of the local paper compares Tom鈥檚 later death to 鈥渢he senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children.鈥�
Songbirds? Really?
Just to recap: When it comes to drug addicts, mentally ill people, and African Americans, don鈥檛 harass them and don鈥檛 kill them because they鈥檙e like songbirds in what they do 鈥渇or us.鈥� That is the title metaphor of the book, people. I cringe when I think about the condescension in it.
Lest you imagine that the title is a one-off, let鈥檚 look at the major plot points. Atticus Finch makes a valiant and brilliant effort to save Tom Robinson, who doesn鈥檛 have the resources (financial or intellectual) to help himself. In the end, Tom Robinson proves more hapless still because, instead of waiting for his court appeal, he makes a panicked escape over the prison wall, and gets shot because of it. Not only is Tom Robinson unable to help his own cause, he鈥檚 an active danger to himself.
In a parallel subplot, Boo Radley, the mentally ill son of a white middle-class family, kills the 鈥渨hite trash鈥� Bob Ewell as part of a valiant rescue to save Scout Finch. In order to keep Boo out of jail, the sheriff and Atticus Finch quietly agree to protect him from the criminal justice system and the limelight. They simply misreport the crime as an 鈥渁ccident.鈥� (Yes, at a time when Americans are questioning the inequities in the criminal justice system, this novel extolls the virtuous way that the police force and the well-meaning white establishment can perform 鈥渇ixes鈥� behind closed doors.)
Over and over again, the message is 鈥渂e kind,鈥� but the novel never ever asks us to question the current social hierarchy, what Isabel Wilkerson calls the American “caste system.”
Why, oh why, are we still requiring this book in school? The paternalistic message may have been progressive 55 years ago, but it isn鈥檛 now. When I ask eighth- and ninth-grade English teachers about the choice, they鈥檙e shocked at my insensitivity. Sometimes they assure me that they teach the book as a 鈥渉istorical鈥� text, and that they do, in fact, talk about the outdated nature of Atticus鈥檚 views. I assume what they say is true, but I鈥檓 going to guess that what eighth graders remember is the powerful story itself, and not the teachers鈥� explanation of historical context. Most readers see Atticus Finch as a true hero. If they didn鈥檛鈥攊f they understood Atticus Finch to be paternalistic in a way that was typical for his time period鈥攖hey wouldn鈥檛 have been so surprised to find out more about him in .
You know the way schools work. Most require teachers teach a certain number of books together as a class and then discuss them. Those community texts will number between two and eight a year. If the school is a Southern school, at least one of those books will probably be by or about an African American (The percentages are embarrassing.) In many schools, To Kill a Mockingbird is that one book. In other words, it is the race-relations book for the year. There are a limited number of slots in the curriculum, but Mockingbird has proved itself more immovable than many other classics accessible to the same age group, including Maya Angelou鈥檚 , Zora Neale Hurston鈥檚 Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Richard Wright鈥檚 It also pushes out more recent texts that are excellent both for reading and discussing: Angie Thomas鈥檚 , Jacqueline Woodson鈥檚 , Walter Dean Myers鈥檚 , Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely鈥檚 , just for starters).
I鈥檓 not implying we should ban To Kill a Mockingbird. But make no mistake: its privileged position in the canon is muscling out some other great books鈥攁nd that鈥檚 what should make us uncomfortable.
Julia Franks is a former teacher and an award-winning novelist (Over the Plain Houses from Hub City Press). She runs a Web application that helps schools track student reading choices from grade to grade ().
Note: The following authors will be speaking at the : at the Saturday General Session, at the CEE Luncheon, and at the Children鈥檚 Book Award Luncheon.