To Kill a Mockingbird

This book was written by Harper Lee, and as I have been saying, we must explore the context of production.

What is the cultural and educational background of the author?

She was born in 1926, in Alabama, US. As her father, she studied laws, but soon she decided to travel to New York and pursue her dream: become a writer. It wasn't as easy as it may sound, so she passed many bad moments at NY. When she was young, her neighbour was Truman Capote, and he would become a famous writer. After a couple of years, she received a letter with one year's wage that said "You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas.". After that, she started writing novels, until she finally published her first book: "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1960).

What are the values and aesthetic concerns of the culture of the author (literature movement, cultural movement, society of that time, etc)? What important social, political or economic issues took place in the author's times?

She was born in the mid '20s, therefore she was living a period of plenty economic expenses after the end of the WWI. Then she passed through the Great Depression (1929) and the WWII and Cold War. This context of shaped her type of writing (and living). This were moments in which were the World was fighting for a more egalitarian society. They fought for the rights of African-American, of Jewish, of Homosexual. All of this can be seen at her first novel, and the one that I'll speak about in the next posts.

The Dust Bowl was another event that occured in the '30s, and it consisted in a huge dust storm that passed through Mexico, United States and Canada. Of course something like this is a very important incident, therefore it made people change their lives, maybe they lost someone of their families or friends. Here is a emotional video of what happened.


                                            The Great Depression and The Dust Bowl