To Kill A Mockingbird is a perfect example of an unsubstantiated judgment or an opinion about an individual. The prime message in the novel is that of racism, how the actions of a community, not just a parent, can affect a child. Born, Nelle Harper Lee in 1926, Monroeville, Alabama. She attended school at three different colleges where she studied law, Huntington College from 1944-1945, University of Alabama from 1945- 1949, and studied one year at Oxford University. The study of law and its principles helped her develop the way she was brought up. Her upbringing gave her raw material to write her only book. She was the youngest of four kids. When she started off in the real world she worked as a reservation clerk with Eastern Airlines and BOAC in New York City. To concentrate on her writing she quit working as an airline clerk. In 1957 she submitted the manuscript of her book to the J. B. Lippincott Company. She was told that her novel consisted of a series of short stories strung together. She was urged to rewrite it. For the next two and a half-year she reworked the manuscript with the help of her editor, Tay Hohoff, and in 1960 To Kill A Mockingbird was published. In 1961 it went on to win the Pulitzer Prize and was later made into an Academy Award winning film. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American Literature.
To Kill a Mockingbird is set in Maycomb County, an imaginary district in southern Alabama. The time is the early 1930s, the years of the Great Depression when poverty and unemployment were widespread throughout the United States. The story begins during the summer when the main character and narrator, Jean Louise Finch, nicknamed Scout, is six years old, and her brother Jem is about to enter the fifth grade. One day the two children meet a new friend, seven-year-old Dill, who has come from Mississippi to spend the summer with his Aunt Rachel. Dill is amused by the neighborhood gossip about a man in his thirties, "Boo" Radley, who has not been seen outside of his home in years. Encouraged by Dill, Jem and Scout try to think up ways to lure Boo Radley out of his house, and they play games based on stories they have heard about the Radley family.
When fall comes, Scout enters the first grade. Because she has already taught herself how to read and write, Scout finds school a disappointment. Soon it is summer again, and Dill returns for another visit. The children's schemes for making contact with Boo Radley grow bolder this year, and on Dill's last night in town they decide to sneak up onto the Radley porch and spy on Boo through the window. Jem goes first, but just as he reaches the window, Nathan Radley, Boo's brother, catches sight of the children and frightens them off with a blast from his shotgun. Jem is in such a hurry to get away that he leaves his trousers behind when they catch on a wire fence. That night Jem goes back to retrieve his pants and finds that someone has mended them and left them neatly folded over the fence, as if just waiting for his return. By now Jem realizes that Boo Radley is as mean as he thought and has been playing along with the children's games the whole time. Scout does not figure this out until the following winter, on the night that the house of their neighbor, Miss Maudie, burns to the ground. While Scout is standing outside in the cold watching the fire, someone sneaks up behind her and places a blanket around her shoulders. Later, they realize it was none other than Boo Radley performing an act of kindness. After their interest in the Radley family begins to fade the learn of their father Atticus has become the defense lawyer for Tom Robinson, a black man who is charged with raping Mayella Ewell, a white girl. At first the children only care about the case because it means that their friends have begun to call Atticus nasty names. One old lady in the neighborhood, Mrs. Dubose, makes Jem so angry at her insulting remarks about Atticus that he tramples over all her flowers in her garden. Understanding what he did was wrong he has made arrangements to read to Mrs. Dubose every afternoon for two months. It wasn’t until Mrs. Dubose died that Jem and Scout learned that the old lady was struggling to overcome a drug addiction.
As the trial of Tom Robinson comes closer it causes feelings of the Maycomb residents to come out. Two nights before the trial is to start, a group of men come to the Finch house to tell Atticus about threats against Tom Robinson's life. Atticus spends the next night camped out at the jail to protect Tom against the mob. Jem, Scout, and their friend Dill go downtown to check on Atticus and, by chance, arrive at the same time as a group of very angry men, who have come to take Tom Robinson and kill him. Scout notices that one of the men is the father of a boy in her class at school, and her friendliness embarrasses him so much that he changes his mind and talks the mob into leaving. The day of the trial Atticus' questions make it clear that Mayella Ewell and her father are lying about the rape, that Tom Robinson is innocent. Even though proven innocent the jury members convict him because they cannot think of taking a black man's word against two whites. Atticus is now very respected to the black community of Maycomb, but Bob Ewell vows to get back at Atticus for making him out to be a liar in front of the whole town. Shortly after the trial Tom Robinson has given up all hope of getting justice from the courts. He then makes a desperate attempt to escape from the prison yard, and is shot dead. After the tragedy of Tom Robinson’s death the Finch family try to put that awful incident behind them. In late October after a Halloween pageant which Scout has been cast in the role of a ham. After the pageant Scout decides to walk home still dressed in her costume, with Jem with her. Bob Ewell, seeing an opportunity to get revenge on Atticus through his children, follows the children down a dark street and tries to kill them. In the confusion that follows Scout realizes that another adult has appeared and is trying to help them. It is none other than Boo Radley, who had seen the attack from his window. Boo kills Bob Ewell , and carries the wounded Jem home. The sheriff decides to say that Bob Ewell fell on his own knife and died, sparing “Boo” Radley the attention. Scout never saw Boo Radley again after that night, but she has learned that he was a good man all along and not the frightening man that she and the other children imagined him to be.
     I believe, the author, Harper Lee, wrote To Kill A Mockingbird to address issues of inequality, racism and being judgmental, just to name a few. I think she addressed inequality and at the same time racism when she wrote about how Tom Robinson was convicted of raping a girl just because it was a black man’s word against two white people. Also, I think she addressed being judgmental when she wrote about how the children thought of “Boo” Radley as being a monster and in the end realizing that he was a real nice man. I agree that inequality and racism is wrong along with being judgmental of people. With that said I think that To Kill A Mockingbird is good at helping educate people of these problems today.