Just finished reading TKAM, first time since doing it for O Level. Some thoughts on it as a budding, albeit fifty year old, writer -
Characters are Harper Lee's forte. They are many and varied (I won't list them); she creates a real, authentic, detailed world and this is one of the things where the film version is deficient, it pares back the detail and the richness of Lee's imagined world. Some critics have said that the black characters are cyphers but I don't think this is true - although they are are all virtuous and portrayed in a sympathatetic light, and without irony, unlike the knowing portrayal of Aunt Alexandra's ladies with their ostensibly well meaning support for Christian missionaries in Africa.
Style: Lee isn't a stylist like her pal Truman Capote - her style is fairly plain - but the narrator's southern story telling voice is very convincing. HL is quoted somewhere as wanting to be the Jane Austen of Alabama. The social critique inherent in the scenes with the Christian mission supporting ladies is certainly reminiscent of Austen. Other critics have compared her to Carson McCullers, in particular her novel 'the Member of the Wedding' which also has a young girl as the narrator.
These are just some first thoughts which I'll develop later.
I thought it might be useful to give a chapter / event break down as there are no chapter headings in the novel, as much for my own purposes in understanding how the novel is structured as anything else, (although I'm sure I could find something similar in Coles's Notes).
31 Chapters -
The novel is divided into two parts but in my five act way of thinking Lee's part one (chapters 1-11) would cover my acts one and two; her chapters 12-21 are my act three; chapter 22-31 would be acts four and five. So -
Part One (Acts 1 & 2)
1. Dill / Boo Radley; 2. School; 3. Walter Cunningham / The Ewells; 4. (One year on) gifts from Boo / dares; 5. Mrs Maudie / Boo; 6. Mrs Avery / jem's pants; 7. Second grade for Scout / gifts; 8. Winter / Mrs Maudie's house fire / Boo and blanket; 9.First mention of the case / Cecil Jacobs / Xmas visiting family; 10. Old Tim Johnson; 11. Mrs Dubose
Part Two (Act 3)
12. Calpurnia's Church; 13. Aunt Alexandra; 14. Dill runs away 15.Confrontation at the Jailhouse; 16. First Day at Court; 17. Bob Ewell's evidence; 18. Mayella's evidence; 19.Tom Robinson's evidence; 20. Interlude - Mr Dolphus Raymond 21. Jury finds Tom guilty
(Act 4 & 5)
22. Jem's disillusionment with Maycomb; 23. Implications of trial discussed 24. The Mission Ladies / Tom's death reported 25. Telling Helen Robinson 26. Back to School 27. The growing menace of Bob Ewell; 28. The Pageant and ambush by Bob Ewell; 29. Heck Tate tells Atticus 30. Meeting Boo; 31. Sparing Boo
