Nelle Harper Lee (research pape

She never tried to follow up her first successful book. Though opinions vary(many people dispute with it), the book rose above censure to become an American icon(Encyclopedia, n.pg). She is Nelle Harper Lee, the person who thinks about humanity under American slavery and wrote the book, To Kill a Mockingbird.

This book completed in 1959 and published in 1960. Then it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961. It was also made into an Oscar-winning film in 1962. Otherwise, she published another book "Go Set a Watchman" which was written before "To Kill a Mockingbird" and portrays the later lives of the character. But it did not get a such success like "To Kill a Mockingbird". (Encyclopedia, P287)

Actually, she can write To Kill a Mockingbird is deeply related to her growing environment and personality. Lee was born at April 28, 1926 in a small town. She enjoyed reading Jane Austen, Charles Lamb, and Robert Louis Stevenson. However, she was only able to go to a communiversity at first. Then she went to the University of Alabama of  law at Tuscallosa in 1947. Surprisedly, She left the University of Alabama six months short of completing her law degree, although she later was awarded an honorary degree by that institution. After that, Lee traveled to England as an exchange student Oxford  University. Through her experience of her education, we can figure out a persist earnest girl, realize herself depending on effort. She was not a talent, just always in progress.(Encyclopedia, P220)

When Lee began composing To Kill a Mockingbird, the years 1933 to 1935 took place Great Depression and racial tensions were running high in the South as a whole, especially in Alabama. The Scottsboro incident happened there in 1931. Nine young black men, falsely accused of raping two white women on board a train. Then eight sentenced to death, the youngest at age 13, to life imprisonment. It sparked a mass defense movement. Lee is said to have been influenced greatly by it. (Telgen, P295)

As a result, she wrote down To Kill a Mockingbird which contains her thinking of prejudice and tolerance, guilt and innocence. In the book when the children receive guns for Christmas, Atticus tells them it is all right to shoot at blue jays, but "it's sin to kill a mockingbird". As Miss Maudie explains, it would thoughtlessly cruel to kill innocent creatures that "don't do one thing but music for us to enjoy."(Telgen, P295) From human appeared, this kind of topics never stop arguing. To Kill a Mockingbird is an essence and revivification base on reality. It becomes southerners in the 1960s objected to its portrayal of white people and leads teenagers learn more about that period.

Many people praise her a lot, though the latter result was hardly a leap from obscurity. "In her first novel, Harper Lee writes with gentle affection, rich humor and deep understanding of small-town family life in Alabama," wrote Frank H.Lyell in the New York Times Book Review. Truman Capote raved to George Plimpton of the New York Times Book Review that Lee was "a gifted woman, courageous, and with a warmth that instantly kindles most people, however suspicious or dour."

In contract, some reviewers considered the book's ending to be overly dramatic and unnecessarily violent and as Lee depicted American society under slavery, they wanted to ban it to students. A concerned mother of a pupil exposed, "I'm not disputing this is great literature. But there is so much racial slurs in there and offensive wording that you can't get past that, and right now we are nation divided as it is." (National Review, n.pg) Moreover, others questioned the accuracy of the narrator's voice, the young Scout. "The praise Miss Lee deserves must be qualified somewhat by noting that oftentimes expository style has a processed, homogenized, impersonal flatness quite out of keeping with the narrator's gay, impulsive approach to life in youth," Lyell wrote.(Encyclopedia, n.pg)

While small defects cannot obscure great virtues, Lee's reputation even has grown since the debut of her remarkable novel(Encyclopedia, P287). To Kill a Mockingbird reflects her concern about the slavery, racism and understanding of prejudice and guilt. She seems to suggest that children have a natural instinct for tolerance and understanding; only as they grow older do they learn to react to differences with fear and disdain. It really affects a great number of people.

Work cited

"To Kill a Mockingbird." Novels for Students, edited by Diane Telgen, vol. 2, Gale, 1997, pp. 285-307. Gale Virtual Reference Library, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?

"Harper Lee." Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed., vol. 20, Gale, 2004, pp. 220-222. PowerSearch, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?

"'I'm not disputing this is great literature,' said the concerned mother of a pupil exposed to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird." National Review, 31 Dec. 2016, p. 12. Opposing Viewpoints In Context, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?