To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Introduction

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Introduction to the Novel & Author Friday, April 10 th, 2015

The Reclusive Author Harper Lee is an American writer, famous for her race relations novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. The book became an international bestseller and was adapted into screen in 1962. Lee was 34 when the work was published. Descended from Robert E. Lee, the Southern Civil War general, Nelle Harper Lee was born in Monroeville, Alabama, on April 28 th, 1926. Her father was a former newspaper editor and proprietor, who had served as a state senator and practiced as a lawyer in Monroeville. Lee studied law at the University of Alabama from 1945 to 1949, and spent a year as an exchange student in Oxford University, Wellington Square. Six months before finishing her studies, she went to New York to pursue a literary career. She worked as an airline reservation clerk with Eastern Air Lines and British Overseas Airways during the 1950 s. In 1959, Lee accompanied Truman Capote to Holcombe, Kansas, as a research assistant for Capote's classic 'non-fiction' novel In Cold Blood (1966).

The Reclusive Author, continued To Kill a Mockingbird was Lee's first novel. The book is set in Maycomb, Alabama, in the 1930 s. Atticus Finch, a lawyer and a father, defends a black man who is accused of raping a poor white girl. The setting and several of the characters are drawn from life - Finch was the maiden name of Lee's mother, and the character of Dill was drawn from Capote, Lee's childhood friend. The work's central character, a young tomboy nicknamed Scout, was not unlike Lee in her youth. Although her first novel gained a huge success, Lee did not continue her career as a writer. She returned from New York to Monroeville, where she has lived avoiding interviews. For more information about Harper Lee, visit: http: //www. biography. com/people/harper-lee-9377021 http: //harperlee. com/ http: //www. goodreads. com/author/show/1825. Harper_Lee

Worth Mentioning The Mockingbird Next Door: Life with Harper Lee by Marja Mills Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee; release date – July 14 th, 2015 Friday, April 17 th, @ 7 PM @ Barnes & Noble, Arena Hub Plaza, Wilkes-Barre: To Kill a Mockingbird Discussion Group (for educators and students). Call first for reservations (free of charge): 570 -829 -4210 I will be there with Mrs. Woronko. If you go, I’ll give you 20 extra credit points!

Literary Terms: You should already know these. Allusion Climax Flashback Foreshadowing Hyperbole Inference Irony (Dramatic, Structural, Verbal) Metaphor Mood Motif Narrator Personification Setting Simile Symbol Theme

Literary Terms: These two may be new to you. Anaphora: repetition of a word or group of words within a short section of writing. Example: “A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted. ” – Ecclesiastes 3: 2 Circular Plot Structure: a narrative that begins and ends at approximately the same point in time or the same event. Example: To Kill a Mockingbird begins and ends with Jem having a broken arm.