UF experts can talk about the 50th anniversary of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

July 8, 2010

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Fifty years ago, author Harper Lee introduced the world to one of the most harrowing trials in American literature.

In “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Lee transports readers into the mind of a 6-year-old girl whose father defends a black man accused of rape during the Depression. Her characters and their experiences strongly impacted American culture, as well as high school curriculums for decades to come.

Lee’s first and only novel will be celebrated through at least 50 events around the country in honor of the 50th anniversary of one of America’s most popular narratives.

The book was originally published July 11, 1960. After winning a Pulitzer Prize, the novel sold nearly 1 million copies a year, with most sales in the South and Midwest. The 1962 movie version of the novel, directed by Robert Mulligan, won three Academy Awards the following year.

Although 84-year-old Lee is legendary for avoiding media, the following UF experts are available to comment on the milestone anniversary.

Ben Wise, assistant professor of history, specializes in Southern history, cultural history and gender and sexuality. Wise said “To Kill a Mockingbird” is important because it moves straight to the heart of Southern and American history, depicting the actual and potential violence that maintained racial and cultural divides throughout the 20th century.

Wise considers the novel controversial in the post-civil rights era. He said critics maintain that the story’s implicit message is that black people needed the protection of good white people. Furthermore, he said some critics argue that the novel places the blame for Southern racism on poor white people, putting aside the more systematic injustices of segregation.

“Any way you interpret it, it is a book that should be read, for it raises questions that should be thought through by students of history and literature,” Wise said. “It also happens to be a masterful example of prose style and the coming of age novel.”

Wise earned his doctorate in history from Rice University. Before teaching at UF, he taught at Harvard University and held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Andrew Gordon, professor of English, has conducted extensive research on the adaptations of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Over the past 50 years, the novel has become part of popular mythology, Gordon said, adding that the play and movie adaptations speak to the desire for racial conciliation and overcoming the ugly legacy of post-slavery segregation.

Gordon co-authored “Screen Saviors: Hollywood Fictions of Whiteness” with Hernán Vera, professor emeritus of sociology, in 2003. While they believed the movie version was a faithful adaptation of Lee’s novel, they concluded that the film functions primarily to ease the white conscience by presenting the image of a white savior, with minorities as passive background figures in need of rescue.

In the age of Barack Obama, Gordon said the story reflects how far civil rights have come since the Depression era, as depicted in the novel. However, Gordon believes that society still has a long way to go. Although the country has made great racial amends, people must not succumb to the claims that they live in a post-racial society, he said.

Gordon is the director of the Institute for the Psychological Study of the Arts. He teaches American fiction since World War II, Jewish-American fiction and science fiction. He earned his doctorate English from the University of California, Berkeley.

Wise can be contacted at 352-273-3363 or reached by e-mail at benwise@ufl.edu. Gordon can be contacted at 352-392-6650 or reached by e-mail at agordon@ufl.edu.