A Study Of The Initiation Theme In To Kill A Mockingbird In The Context Of American Southern Culture

Nelle Harper Lee is a well-known American novelist in 20th century. In her writing career, Lee published only one novel--To Kill a Mockingbird. It deals with racial injustice and prejudice Lee observed as a child in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. Lee began writing To Kill a Mockingbird in the mid-1950s, and she published it in the tense atmosphere of the early 1960s, yet the novel became an enormous success, it sold over fifteen million copies and won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. In the following years, Lee was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and many other titles for her contribution to literature. Nowadays, the novel is still considered a classic, beloved by millions of readers worldwide.The novel’s success is attributed to its vivid narration of the life, culture and society of American South, its appealing depiction of childhood innocence and maturation, and its scathing moral condemnation of racial prejudice. Its initiation theme, which highlights the protagonists’ growth against the evils in American South, reflects how the author’s growth affects her writing, and conveys the author’s criticism on the decadence and evil in American South through children’s perspective. In order to interpret the textuality of culture and cultural formation of the text which is reflected by the novel’s initiation theme, this thesis analyzes such typical Southern elements as the issues of racial tension, issues of class, the significance of family, Southerners’ sense of community, sense of justice.Through applying the theories of cultural criticism, such as the theory of cultural formation, the theory of hegemony, the theory of self-fashioning, etc., this thesis focuses on the relationship between the novel’s setting and its initiation theme. It first gives an introduction to Harper Lee’s life and her novel To Kill a Mockingbird, and an introduction to both domestic and international studies on Harper Lee and her novel’s initiation theme. Then it focuses on some background information, with the American Southern town generally introduced as the setting of the story, and with the origin and development of the protagonists’ maturation elaborated as a major theme of the novel. To provide an illustration of the link between the above two aspects, American Southern literature is also discussed. Highlighting the mysterious, gloomy, horrible features of the American South described in the novel, the next part analyzes how the children grow against the old Southern civilization, especially its Gothic environment and the legacy of aristocracy. Finally, this thesis discusses the racial issue and class issue which characterize the South, and their impacts on individuals’ mental growth, thus reveals that under the influence of Southern cultural elements, the novel’s initiation theme indicates relevant historical and geographical features of the South; and in some sense, as a reflection of the development of Southerners’ ideology, the protagonists’ maturation stimulates the unique formation of the Southern culture.