Faulkner and other writers of the Southern Renaissance wrote from deep inside the culture and mythology of a place that might as well have been a separate nation, but the famed “tragic sense” of Southern literature—the very thing that gave Southern literature its power and authenticity—is absent from To Kill a Mockingbird. Even though the plot turns on the death of an innocent black man, the tone is jarringly cheerful. Take out the trial and death of Tom Robinson, and the book is like The Little Rascals, all about the pranks and high jinks of a bunch of loveable kids.
Monday, July 13, 2015
Minority report …
… The American Scholar: Resisting Atticus’s Allure — Stephen Goodwin.
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There is a letter of Flannery O'Connor's, dated 1 October 1960, that touches on To Kill a Mockingbird:
ReplyDelete"I think I see what it really is--a child's book. When I was fifteen I would have loved it. Take out the rape and you've got something like Miss Minerva and William Green Hill. I think for a child's book it does all right. It's interesting that all the folks that are buying it don't know they're reading a child's book. Somebody ought to say what it is...."