Posted on 05/04/2013 1:41:37 PM PDT by ConservativeStatement
The author of Gone with the Wind wrote only one book
You make some very good points.
You are obviously a very good teacher. You remind me of my 8th grade English teacher, I loved her.
I can’t understand why more conservatives don’t see “To Kill A Mockingbird” as a novel with many conservative values and themes. I read it many times and I love the movie version as well.
Rather than portraying “all white (especially Southerners) people bad – all black people good”, Lee’s novel and its characters are deeply layered and it doesn’t fall into mere stereo types. In fact I always thought it portrayed southerners in a rather good light overall. And Bob Ewell isn’t evil and a bigot simply because he is white, he’s evil because he is a very bad man, a drunk, a bully, lazy, shiftless and on the dole and a person who would rather see an innocent man hanged to cover up for his own crimes and failures as a father – he is not white but what southerners call, "white trash". I always found one of the themes of the novel was the importance of the Rule of Law and of standing up for what is right even if it is difficult and isn’t always the “popular” choice.
I think that Atticus shooting the rabid dog was a metaphor for the evil that exists among us and the need for sometimes putting down that evil; that Atticus, unknown to his children was the “best shot in the county” is telling in that Atticus wasn’t a braggart or a show off nor did he need to prove himself to anyone. And that it was Boo Radley who rescued Jem and Scout from the drunken and murderous Ewell and killed him in defense of the helpless and innocent children while being rather childlike and innocent himself, that even as a “simpleton”, he could differentiate right from wrong and stand up for what is right, is simply brilliant IMO.
Mr. Underwood can’t stand black people and won’t have one near him yet he helps Atticus defend Tom Robinson from the lynch mob.
I some ways both Atticus and Underwood remind me of my own father in some ways. My dad was very conservative but being a product of an older generation and his upbringing, had his prejudices; he wasn’t too fond of black people and occasionally used the N word. But when I was a kid in the late 60’s my dad worked with and was best friends with a guy who married a black woman. I recall that my dad tried to talk him out of it, didn’t think it was a good idea, but after they got married and shortly after they had a daughter together, my dad invited them to come to dinner at our house.
I vividly recall how upset my mother was. She was very fond of Conrad, he had spent a lot of time at our house, was like a member of the family and he was like an uncle to me and she didn’t exactly object to his wife being black or even having a black person in our home but she was very concerned with “what will the neighbors think” being that we lived in a very WASPY neighborhood.
I remember my father telling my mother that he didn’t give a good %*#$ what the neighbors think. “Conrad is my friend and she is his wife, they love each other and are married in the eyes of God and that’s good enough for me. If that upsets the neighbors, if they don’t want to have anything to do with us because of that, maybe I don’t want anything to do with them either. Maybe instead of merely pretending to be good Christians, they should start acting like one.”
I also remember around the same time when a bunch of hippy anti-war protesters came to our neighborhood and were going door to door handing out their anti-war literature and calling our US servicemen “baby killers” and “war criminals” and such. Next door to us lived a woman with four young sons and a husband serving in Vietnam, my mother and father befriended her looked after her as if she was their own daughter. My father, a WWII vet himself, stood guard in front of her house with his loaded shot gun to keep them from harassing her and told those creeps exactly where they could go.
FWIW, my father was not a highly educated man, he dropped out of HS to serve his country after Pearl Harbor, but he loved to read and was very well read. He instilled in me a love of reading and introduced me to the classic novels he loved as a child; Robinson Crusoe, Moby Dick, Last of the Mohicans, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Gulliver's Travels, The Three Musketeers and the works of HG Wells. My mother introduced me to Dickens, Austen, Tolstoy, Fitzgerald and P. G. Wodehouse. And yes, we had a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird on our book shelf.
So we are to believe that those two were pals, and that Harper did a lot of research for Truman, for which he didn’t give her credit, as she later complained, but that Truman had absolutely nothing to do with Harper’s work? Oh, OK.
Never read the book, just watched movie. It was WEIRD. Kids calling their dad by his first name, a little girl named “scout’ dirt ball spits in Finch’s face and he does nothing, kids wandering through woods unaccompanied by adults to a party.
Weird.
Aside from Nelson Demille, and a small handful of exceptions I am not at all impressed with East Coast writers. I think the best writers are Southerners (I know, it’s a generalization), as they seem to be the best story tellers.
I appreciate your opinion about Grisham, though I do not share it. I will say this, though: Grisham is better than Clive Cussler, who I think is the worst contemporary writer. Just horrible.
I read some Flannery O'Connor in college. Boy did she have a twisted streak. Good writer but not a whole lot of likable characters.
Thanks for confirming my own prejudice. T.R. Pearson and Thomas H. Cook, both Southerners, now residing in Noo Yoke, if I'm not mistaken, do touch on racial issues once in a while, without getting into the white guilt melodrama and simplifications of Harper Lee and others like her, whatever her alleged conservative views, though I'd prefer to see them as simply archaic in today's world. After all, JFK would qualify as a Conservative nowadays.
Thanks! While Aunt Alexandra thought that “fine folks” are those who’ve lived on a piece of land for a very long time, Scout thought “fine folks” are those who do the best they can with what they have. Your father meets Scouts description!
I KNOW! You know, she was Catholic? Some intellectual priests I know like to cite her.
She said something to the effect of: if you’re going to write about a religious theme, make it subtle.
Her stuff was hidden social commentary.
Margaret Walker is another famous one though she can be claimed by Bama and Missippi. I read Jubilee in the early 80s when my “gifted” teacher recommended it. I think my aunt taught that one in her AP classes.
When I go home to Mississippi, I always tell my husband that the trees are full of stories. Lol I would say he thinks I am crazy except that he agrees. I probably spent too much time laying on the grass underneath the swaying tall pines listening to them “whisper.” :)
Most Southern writers, if you stop and think about it, are "telling stories". As a group, their imagery is more evocative than other schools of writing. Their characters seem real, less contrived.
Their stories are always a.) relatable and b.) morally relevant.
If you're not familiar with him, may I recommend Farrell Sams of Fayetteville, GA as a master of the craft.
Thanks! We will check him out!
Tx for story re your father; very interesting.
Zzzzzzzzzzz
More myths
Pass the Ali and MLK will ya
With a dash of John Grisham on the side
Hubby has been researching a case here in Zona. It is very close to TKAM. It is fascinating for a lot of reasons. And it is no myth.
“Personally, I think Truman Capote wrote it.”
I do too. Those two grew up next door to each other in DipShit, Alabama in the 1930’s. There’s simply no way two such incredible authors like that would happen to be next door to each other in a place like that at a time like that. Furthermore, “Mockingbird” is the ONLY thing Lee ever “wrote”. My guess is Lee had an outline and/or a rough draft and Capote wrote/rewrote it.
Author’s lifetime does not equal “perpetual copyright” unless said author is immortal. Please stop talking rubbish.
I hope they weren't quoting her Bible salesman who had a bottle of booze hidden in a hollowed out book and stole the women's prosthetic leg after trying to seduce her. I think that story scarred me for life.
So spooky.
She was attempting to point out the hypocrisy she was witnessing.
No. She wrote essays and opinions on her contemporary culture.
Her stories reflected her reaction to the culture.
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