Nelle Harper Lee
Miss. Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in Moroeville Alabama, where her father practiced as a lawyer and served as a state senator. She grew up as the youngest out of 4 children, and was the only one to pursue a literary career. She received her early education in public schools, and from 1945-1949 she attended University of Alabama, studying law. She moved to New York, without carrying out the requirements for her degree in law, and there worked as an airline reservation clerk. Shortly after, she left her clerk position to concentrate her efforts on her first novel.
To Kill a Mockingbird went through various stages of revision, over a two and a half year period, before hitting the shelves in
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Like Harper Lee, Scout is the youngest of her family, and is forced to work her way through the trials of adolescence. Scout seems almost a mirror image of Miss. Lee herself.
Much like the way Scout resembles Lee, it seems other characters in the book have been drawn from Lee’s relations and acquaintances. For instance, she has integrated the fine qualities of her own father, Amasa Coleman Lee, into Atticus Finch, the father of Scout and Jem. Both were intelligent and fair men, who raised children accordingly, and both started with petty jobs and later went on to study and practice law in small communities, to support their families. It was said that Mr. Lee even autographed childrens’ books as “Atticus Finch” instead of Amasa Lee. Truman Capote, a childhood friend of Harper Lee’s, was said to have been inspiration for the young character, Dill. This is often the case with many authors. Influential events and people, create new experiences for the imagination to expand upon, leaving loads of opportunity for minor plots in a story.
Many family names, another common happening in writings, were also incorporated into the novel. Finch is the maiden name of Miss. Lee’s mother, and Cunningham was derived from her father’s side. Louise, (Jean Louise Finch) was a sister to Lee, and was thrilled to have her name appear in the novel.
Harper Lee has an incredible way of bringing a book to life through her defined characters. She presents
As an example, many people have compared characters from To Kill a Mockingbird to real-life individuals in Lee’s hometown. Alfred “Son” Boleware Jr., a resident in Lee’s hometown was the inspiration for the character Boo Radley. Like Boo, Boleware got in trouble with the law as a teen and as a result of his misdemeanors Boleware’s father kept him in the house as a “virtual prisoner” (Haggerty 90). Both Boleware and Boo were the subject of “endless lurid gossip and speculation” (90). This is an example of how Lee used people from her life and made them into fictional characters. Furthermore, the character Dill was also based upon Truman Capote, who was Lee’s next door neighbor. “Lee was certainly influenced by Truman Capote... whom she modeled the character of Dill” (Watkin 11). A third biographical representation that is portrayed in the novel is Scout, the protagonist of To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee the author of To Kill a Mockingbird used to Scout represents her childhood (18). Both Lee and Scout grew up as tomboys, experienced the same events, and ultimately grew up with the same people. The biographical details in the novel reflects the novel by making it seem like a personal memoir by Lee. Harper Lee was biographically influenced by the people in her hometown. In her novel she used townspeople she was familiar with as inspiration for the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird.
Harper Lee is well known for her great contributions towards modern society through her astounding book, To Kill a Mockingbird. The novel is read world-wide, in high schools and colleges because of its in-depth look at the social classes in the south during the 1930's. The book was influenced by society, in particular the social order of the south during her childhood. Lee grew up during this time of controversy which is why she writes so passionately about the topic. Lee wrote the novel to make a point about race while basing much of the plot off a trial from her young age, her own father, and the society she grew up in.
The book "To Kill a Mockingbird" is a story of life in an Alabama town in the 30's. The narrator, Jean Louise Finch, or Scout, is writing of a time when she was young, and the book is in part the record of a childhood, believed to be Harper Lee’s, the author of the book..
Throughout researching information about Harper Lee, I’ve learned a great number of things including who she is and how she got her commencement in literature. According to Biography.com, Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama where she and her four older siblings grew up. Her dad was a lawyer, a member of the Alabama state legislature, and her mom suffered from a mental illness, so she seldomly left the house. While
Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926 to Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Cunningham Finch Lee. Her father, a former newspaper editor and proprietor, was a lawyer who also served in the state legislature. Lee grew up in the small southwestern town of Monroeville, Alabama. As a child, Lee was a tomboy and an intelligent reader; she enjoyed the friendship of her schoolmate, Truman Capote.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Nelle Harper Lee, was narrated by six-year-old Jean Louise (Scout) Finch and is influenced by her young age. Harper Lee created a book about deep topics and lightened them through Scout’s childhood memories. The book describes a racist situation through the eyes of a child, and Scout’s journey to see right from wrong. Scout sees throughout the story that African Americans deserve freedom as much as anyone. The book is affected by its narrator’s age because of its innocence, Scouts ignorance, and the adult ideas put into a child's life.
Have you ever thought about what inspired Harper Lee to write her novel To Kill a Mockingbird? Lee was inspired by the real world events that happened around her. The scottsboro trials influenced her. The murder of Emmett Till made her thoughts pliant on her thoughts about the relationships should be between blacks and whites. The way Jim Crow laws were carried out created a different view of the way black people should be treated by whites.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a coming of age story of two young children, Scout and Jem Finch, who learn how to live in the prejudiced society of the fictional town, Maycomb, Alabama. Many characters are involved in helping Scout and Jem learn important lessons and mature, whether it is by mouth or through actions. They learn how to be more gentleman and ladylike, they learn that people are sometimes cruel and ignorant, but most importantly, they learn to look at people with more than one perspective. Harper Lee uses the characters Atticus, Dolphus Raymond, and Boo Radley, to show the idea that one cannot fully understand another person until he or she walks in that person's shoes.
Both characters talked to their children as they would talk to an adult. Both of the fathers showed respect to each and every person. According to Lynnette Horner, Jean Louise’s dad was based off of Amasa Coleman Lee. Being both lawyers, they each defended an African American in an interracial case creating conflict between the white communities. Soylent Communications, NNDB says, “Her father – a lawyer and the basis for Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird – served in the Alabama legislature from 1927 to 1939.” In real life Amasa had experienced many other careers including being a bookkeeper, teacher, and a newspaper editor. Atticus and Amasa loved to read and were both very smart. Passing some of these key features to his son Atticus taught Jem mostly to be fair. In the novel, Jean Louise Finch has one sibling. Harper Lee has three siblings. Two sisters named Alice and Louise, and one brother, Edwin Coleman. Edwin had to be the inspiration for Jem because she only had one brother. Edwin was older than Harper by six years, but younger than his other sisters. Growing up Edwin had a good friend that happened to be a significant person to
Nelle Harper Lee, born April 28, 1926 was named after her grandmother, Ellen. Her mother was Francis Cunningham Finch, born August 14, 1888, and her father was Amass Coleman Lee, born in 1880. Mr. Lee grew up as a farmer in Florida before moving to Alabama and settling down with Francis. They had three children before Nelle. The oldest was Alice Finch Lee (1911) and she was fifteen when Nelle was born. The second oldest was Louise Lee Finch (1916) who was ten years Nelle’s senior. The second youngest child, and only son of the Lee family, was Edwin Lee (1920). Because of the mere six year age difference Edwin and Nelle were very close growing up.
Throughout history, there has been an overarching theme that writers write about. Great authors write about what they know. They write about what they see. They write about what they hear. They write about personal experiences and incorporate details from their lives into their literature. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is a classical work that reflects the Civil Rights and Women’s Movement of the 1950’s-1960’s through her depiction of the relationship between blacks and whites and her portrayal of female characters.
Harper Lee published her famous book, To Kill a Mockingbird, more than fifty years ago, but it is still one of the most read books of this age. Before her death, Harper Lee earned $9,249 a day, giving her a net worth of thirty-five million dollars. This money is well earned, however, as Lee used her words to impact and shape the way people thought to improve the world we live in. Former first lady Laura Bush called the book "a novel that has enshrined for generations an ideal of American decency” (al.com). Clearly, one can already see that the book is well known and influential enough to impress people all over the world. To Kill a Mockingbird is about a young girl by the name of Scout who grows up in a racist town. The story tells the reader
On April 28, 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama, Nelle Harper Lee was born to Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Finch Lee. Along with her siblings, Alice, Louise, and Edwin, Harper was educated in Monroeville Public Schools before going on to attend Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama. After a year at Huntingdon, Lee decided to follow in the footsteps of her father and began studying law at the University of Alabama in 1945 [2]. She left there to study abroad at Oxford University, Wellington Court in England [4]. After returning to the United States, she continued her education at the University of Alabama. However, in 1950, six months prior to completing her law degree, Lee moved to New York hoping to begin
Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926 in the tiny southern town of Monroeville, Alabama ("Harper Lee"). Her father Amasa Coleman Lee, had many occupations. He was a
In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout is one of the main characters and the narrator. During the time the book begins, she is a little 6 year-old girl who is mature for her age, and she continues to mature as the book progresses. Over the course of the novel, Scout develops an exceptional character which is constantly changing from the effects of different events and characters. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee uses the minor characters Boo Radley, Miss Maudie, and Aunt Alexandra to help develop Scout into a strong and compassionate human being from the innocent child she used to be.