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A review by ellies_92
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
3.0
My sensation is that this is a book about African Americans written by a white person for white people.
I liked the ending but while reading it seemed pretty slow-paced, especially the first half. I wished all the action didn’t happen in the second half of the book.
I also wish it didn’t contain so many N- words, I get it, this book is a sign of the times, but it’s truly disturbing reading it for the 100th time.
I guess the aim is to expose the hypocrisy of white folks back in the 1930s, and it’s meant to make you feel bad about it, and you can tell the narrator disagrees with the white-supremacy ideas expressed by Maycomb citizens (e.g. the teacher part near the end where the child herself realizes her teacher shows compassion for Jews but not for Black people) but still the narrator doesn’t openly rebuke these ideas, and the narration is very white-centered.
The only black recurring character is Calpurnia, and except for scolding and educating the children she doesn’t say much… I would have expected a redemption in Scout’s way of treating her as she grew older, but she didn’t. It’s a wasted opportunity in my opinion.
This book Made me feel that Black people voices didn’t count, a story unfortunately told from an all-white perspective.
A plus is that this book succeeds in “showing not telling”, but as a reference for myself, for the time being i’ll read books on the condition of African Americans only if they’re written by African Americans themselves.
I liked the ending but while reading it seemed pretty slow-paced, especially the first half. I wished all the action didn’t happen in the second half of the book.
I also wish it didn’t contain so many N- words, I get it, this book is a sign of the times, but it’s truly disturbing reading it for the 100th time.
I guess the aim is to expose the hypocrisy of white folks back in the 1930s, and it’s meant to make you feel bad about it, and you can tell the narrator disagrees with the white-supremacy ideas expressed by Maycomb citizens (e.g. the teacher part near the end where the child herself realizes her teacher shows compassion for Jews but not for Black people) but still the narrator doesn’t openly rebuke these ideas, and the narration is very white-centered.
The only black recurring character is Calpurnia, and except for scolding and educating the children she doesn’t say much… I would have expected a redemption in Scout’s way of treating her as she grew older, but she didn’t. It’s a wasted opportunity in my opinion.
This book Made me feel that Black people voices didn’t count, a story unfortunately told from an all-white perspective.
A plus is that this book succeeds in “showing not telling”, but as a reference for myself, for the time being i’ll read books on the condition of African Americans only if they’re written by African Americans themselves.