Part 88: Hannah / Mr. Brown

Who is the most important character in To Kill A Mockingbird? Make sure to support your answer with a quote from the book.

The most important character in To Kill A Mockingbird is Scout and Jem’s mother. I know, I know. How can she be the most important character when she dies before the book even starts and barely even gets mentioned? Well, buckle up, kids, because I’m about to take you on a wild ride, and prove to you once and for all that the story wouldn't be the same without her.

Have you ever heard the quote “behind every great man is a greater woman?” I personally first heard this from one of my female role models, Theresa Brixton, and it kind of changed my life. It also applies to To Kill a Mockingbird perfectly, by total coincidence. Atticus is obviously a great lawyer and father but it’s also obvious he couldn’t have become either of those things on his own. Scout’s mother is invisible, like women have always been invisible throughout history, but that’s just because history is always written by men. She’s kind of like Penelope in The Odyssey, who is obviously the real hero of that story, not Odysseus, who is just some stupid sailor who gets tricked by witches and sirens (aka smart women.)

Moreover, because Scout’s mother is dead, she has to look elsewhere to find mother figures. That’s why she identifies so much with Calpurnia, who is black. And because Scout identifies with Calpurnia, that makes her more likely to sympathize with Tom Robinson later in the novel, since Tom is obviously also black. At the same time, it also helps her understand the Ewells, who don’t have a mother either, as well as Boo Radley. Scout is the only one who can really “climb inside someone’s skin and walk around in it,” as is made clear at the end of the story, when Atticus is too stuck in his stubborn ~*Man Ways*~ and Scout, his LITERAL DAUGHTER, has to explain to him how “it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (something HE said in the first place) applies to the whole Boo Radley situation.

Besides, do you really think Harper Lee, a woman, would write a book where the real hero is a white man? She was familiar with the way women and girls always get cast aside and dismissed. Even today, she STILL has to deal with people saying that Truman Capote really wrote her book. Because a woman couldn’t have possibly written such an American classic, right? That's absolute trash, in my opinion, and just proves how all the problems she wrote about in TKAM are still with us.

Sometimes I wonder if Mr. Brown really reads these whole essays. I probably wouldn’t if I was a teacher. I’d just read the beginning and the end and look to see if they used a quote and then slap a grade on there. And if I liked the kid I’d give them a good grade and if I didn’t I’d give them a bad grade. I bet Mr. Brown does the same thing. Wait, why am I talking about you in third person? You’re the only one reading this anyway, except for future-Hannah. Am I right, though? I bet you could turn in the exact same essay with two different names on top and they’d get two different grades. Maybe I'll try that sometime as an experiment.

Another thing I’d look for if I was a teacher was to see how long it was. Because if they wrote something long then at least they’re trying. I hate those kids who don’t even try. Like congratulations on your ignorance, you’re going to make a great office drone slave someday, you’re the reason why humanity hasn’t made any progress over the past five hundred years. Like the people who put in their Myssenger profiles that they “don’t read” or “books r gay” (which is also super homophobic) and act like they’re being so ~bRaVe~ for saying it. When actually it’s the other way around and we’re the brave ones, those of us who read books and fight ignorance.

But anyway, I guess it’s probably time for me to wrap this up. Let’s be real here, though: you can’t lose your mother when you’re a little kid without it affecting everything you do for the rest of your life. Especially as a girl. And if someone doesn’t understand that, it’s probably just because they’re a man and they never had to deal with not having a mother. As for me, I do *technically* have a mother, but she’s never been very motherly and she’s kind of dead to me. So I understand where Scout is coming from. Just because she never talks about her mother doesn’t mean she’s not thinking about her all the time. In fact, the fact that she doesn’t talk about her kind of proves how much she’s thinking about her. Once you understand that, you see the rest of To Kill A Mockingbird in a whole new light, and it makes you appreciate why it really is one of the greatest books of all time and fully deserves to be called the great American novel.

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Hannah - your writing is a “breath of fresh air” (and yes, i do read them all, believe it or not!) i’m not sure i find myself entirely convinced by your argument, but it is clear that you have read and understood the book and its central themes. i also love the connections you made back to the odyssey and to your own experience. in my opinion, that’s one of the great joys of literature :)

i do want to warn you, though, that some of your future teachers might not appreciate this “style” of writing in a school paper, and they might expect you to be a little bit more “formal.” but i trust that you will be able to adjust to that when you have to, which is why i’m not going to be a stickler about it here. i totally get what you’re doing here, but other people might not, and i just want you to be prepared for that

by the way, are you familiar with feminist critical theory at all? i think you might be interested in it. they do a lot of work “reinterpreting” classic works through a feminist “lens,” much the way you do here with tkam. look into bell hooks, elaine showalter, etc. i took a class on them in college (well, actually it was part of a class on postmodern literary criticism more generally, derrida and such) and it was super eye-opening to me as a white man, and it’s the main reason i identify as a feminist

anyway, hannah, it’s been a pleasure to be your teacher this year. we may have had our disagreements, but i do admire your intelligence, passion, and willingness to stand up for yourself (even when the person you were standing up to was me!) sorry that i’ve sometimes had to be more of an ~*Authority Figure~* than a real person, but i hope you understand that i was just doing my job (trying not to sound too much like one of those nazis who was “just following orders” here...) please keep in touch when you go off to high school, and if you ever need a “second set of eyes” on your writing, or just feel like chatting about books, you know where to find me!

mr. brown / isaac / “brownie” :) 

ps: oops, i just realized i totally forgot to give this a grade (between you and me, i don’t really believe in “grades” but the school does and they sign my paychecks.... oh, the compromises of adult life!) of course it should go without saying that your analysis here merits a 4+/4 :)