To Kill a Mocking Bird

Reading the book didn’t strike me as anything surprising or unusual. As a 21^st century girl, having read and seen innocent men charged guilty all over the world and the high profile culprits walking scot-free, the outcome of the case the protagonist’s father is fighting was predictable. But that didn’t make me forget that the entire novel is primarily through the eyes of a little girl and her brother. Children are innocent; at least they were in the era when the book was written.

If only we adults had the innocence of these children, the rationale to question against the wrongdoings happening around us, when it seems so obvious who is guilty and who is not, but yet we watch the innocent being punished, if only, then the world would be a much better place.                                                 

Corruption and crime have become so common that they no longer invoke our consciousness. And this is a dangerous place for us to be in, very similar to the backdrop where the novel is set.

But nonetheless, this story is about courage, the courage of two children to protect their father in the middle of the night against a group of goons, the courage of a lawyer to fight for the truth in a case entrusted upon him, very well knowing the outcome of the case beforehand. No matter what others say, what the majority opinion is, to continue fighting for what you believe defines a man, and especially a man who is a role model for his kids.