Andray Domise writes in The Globe and Mail, "To Kill A Mockingbird Shouldn't Be Taught in 2018." It's an old argument. Some erstwhile critics claim that some works of literature become irrelevant. That's essentially the argument being made against Mockingbird:
To be clear, To Kill a Mockingbird is a well-written book. As a teaching narrative on the reality of race, however, it is helplessly facile and ill-suited. It is a story told through the voice of a white child, Scout Finch, centred on the toils of her white father, Atticus Finch, and whose conflict rests on the judicial fate of a black man, Tom Robinson.
To Kill a Mockingbird was not only written in an immature voice, but poured out of a mind immaturely attuned to racialized people as human beings who continue to exist when white people aren’t thinking about them. The story’s cast of white characters – Scout’s family, her neighbours, even the malevolent Ewells – are actualized and living people, each with their own motivations and desires. They, and the social realities of the 1930s South, are the novel’s subject.
Tom Robinson, on the other hand, is a cipher. A formless void into which the white imagination can project itself. We know hardly anything of his family’s grief, or their rage at the unjust society into which they were violently displaced at birth. We read nothing of the nights his mother must have wrapped her hands around her empty womb and cried out to God to save her child. What we do know is his pitiful fate at the hands of a justice system engineered to destroy him.
This argument rests on the essential premise that the child at the centre of the story -- Scout -- is an unreliable narrator because she knows nothing of the lives of black people. The same argument can be made about many child narrators who look back on their childhoods. But it's precisely because Scout is a child that she can see injustice so clearly, That same clarity of vision is at the heart of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. What Twain called Huck's "sound heart and deformed conscience" make Twain's indictment of his racist society so powerful.
Domise suggests that Lawrence Hill's The Book of Negroes is a much more relevant choice. It's an excellent book. But it is not necessarily more relevant. The fallacy at work here is that age leads to irrelevancy. It may lead to distinct visions -- but not to irrelevancy.
Image: The Globe And Mail
10 comments:
If both books are worthy, read them both. Or divide the class in two with each half reading one or the other book and everybody coming together to share insights into their readings. Everyone seeks connections to current racial conflict. Cookies and milk, and everyone goes home to discuss around the dinner table, at least those who do that sort of thing, those who have a dinner table...
An excellent strategy, Danneau. It sounds like you've done a little teaching yourself.
Read the book in Grade 8, at age 13. Today at 69, I still own the book, still is one of my favorites and as a child remember the lessons it clearly taught. I always liked the rhythm of the writing.
To me it was always about standing up to do the right thing. When you look back on all the years which have passed, not much has changed for people of colour. Now the police don't bother with a trial, they just shoot young black men in the streets of American. In a country with 2 million people in jail, half of them are African American. In justice still reigns in America and Canada, especially if you're First Nations.
What comes out of Donald Trump's mouth these days sounds a lot like the stuff that came out of the mouths in Harper Lee's Alabama, e.a.f.
Personally, To Kill a Mockingbird is not a good book. Plus no Canadian has ever written a book ; and all British writers were hacks.
What is a second rate book doing on a high school curriculum just because it is American written.
I disagree, rumley. To Kill A Mockingbird is an excellent book. True it's American. And it's set in America. But its story and themes are universal.
.. around here, we are big on Mockingbirds.. and big on books & reading.. but not all readers are ready for all or every book. I nabbed a well used copy several months ago and also an interesting version of Hamlet with the original on the left side of an open book and and a scholary 'translation' on the right hand page.. I was pleased to find both in what I call, a 'birdhouse library' over a couple of streets from us. Grab a book and drop one or two off. I also leave finished books on subways and streetcars etc.. they find their way to new homes or readers.
Now the G & W review seemed somewhat facile in its own right.. and with little effort, I could redraft it by using Andray Domise's name
plus The Globe & Mail.. substituted for Harper Lee and the book title... haha & a bit of creative license.. here and there.. you know.. and allude to the 'immature mind' etc.. of the reviewer. But perhaps it was the wrong day, or the wrong book to review such a book relative to the school curriculum. Certainly, Doug Ford might also have an opinion.. however useless.. so might Obama.. so might my sister, who taught the Principal course at OISE
But while on the subject of 'when to read a book' or 'to study' a book.. I had trouble with The True History Of The Kelly Gang.. yet I was dying to consume it. I put it down a couple of times, frustrated. I knew it was brilliant, yet I could not attune to it. My son coincidentally gave me a lovely used copy of the original Huckleberry Finn .. so I moved into that.. Again I was fighting a book (had already read it decades ago).. Then lightning struck.. and old Huck took me to the river... I was thrilled again! A thought came to me.. and I bought another copy of The Kelly Gang... (I had moved the previous copy to my son of course & he raved about it) Off I charged.. I just hadn't been ready for it ! But suddenly it began to sing & inspire me..
The same thing happened with The Silence Of Bonaventure Arrow.. a stunning first novel. I was patient & shifted to a much slower reading pace.. never rushed.. ate every bite & savoured it.. I find there are many books that need time.. the right time, on my part. The books are more than fine, its me that needs to get in tune.. or detune myself.. Its a curse sometimes, that I can speed read or even scan.. a bad habit.. like wolfing down a dozen choice Malpeque oysters in 2 minutes.. or not seeing there are 40 turkey vultures wheeling just above me when I'm in a hurry for the next subway.. and forget to look up at the sky.
Talk show hosts are discussing To Kill A Mockingbird today.. but how many of them have actually read it ? Recently ? Or have an idea what Black Like Me was about.. or really understand what Colin Kaepernick is all about ? A stimulating topic today ! Merci Beaucoup !
FYI - mockingbirds have now migrated to inner city Toronto.. I never saw one in Canada till about 5 years ago.. and yes.. they are astonishing mimics !
And Atticus' advice to Scout continues to ring down the generations, sal. It's a sin to kill a mockingbird.
Given I’ve never actually read the novel, I’m reluctant to comment on it, but the article is making what I think is a different point than that the novel is irrelevant, but that times have changed enough since it was first published for it to become symptomatic of a different kind of racial issue, which is how the story is told and focuses on, or maybe rather what it fails to focus or deal with. I was looking at TVtropes for the right trope name, and the closest I could find in a quick search was “White Man’s Burden”, which isn’t quite right, but does share some the characteristics the article points to, in that only the white characters are developed or have an arc. The black character(s) are window dressing in their own story. You learn all about what the main white characters are thinking and doing, along with their motivations and desires. In contrast, the black character is just somebody to be acted upon to move the plot forward. The voice of the black characters and the black community are mostly silent. It’s a great story for white people, because all the voices are ones they will recognize and even relate to, without any voices from the minority community that might make them uncomfortable. For the black kids and other minorities, not so much. The characters like them are all but voiceless. Everything is told through the lens of white people. That this is not at all uncommon in all kinds of media and all sorts of minority representation is something of a growing issue these days and is why I’m bringing it up. (Again, I’m basing this on the article and not the book.)
That doesn’t mean that the story is a bad one, but if your goal is to teach kids about the complexities of race and racism, then finding a novel that doesn’t just repeat the white voice so prevalent in popular culture is probably a good idea.
Your comment nicely summarizes the argument, B.J. The problem I have with it is I don't see Tom Robinson as an empty character. I agree that the story is told from a white prospective. But if you want a narrative rooted in the black experience, you can turn to Rlph Elison's The Invisible Man or Richard Wright's Native Son.
Domise encourges a common practice -- staying within our own silos. She assumes that black writers understand the issues better than a white woman whose exxperience is eighty years old.
You don't break down barriers until you can look at things from another's perspective. The passage of time can make some literature appear quaint. But that doesn't diminish its value.
Post a Comment