Harper Lee Dies: ‘Mockingbird’ & Reconciliation Education
By Laksiri Fernando –February 21, 2016
Dr. Laksiri Fernando
“The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.” – From ‘Mockingbird’
Harper Lee, the celebrated author of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” has peacefully died on the 19th February, two days ago, at the age of 89, at a nursing home not so far from the house where she had grown up, in Monroeville, Alabama, and also the impressive setting for her passionate novel, the fictional Maycomb. I don’t know about Monroeville, but know quite well of Maycomb and its surroundings.
Initial Impressions
I first came across this novel along with another interesting but obscure one, “Rugged-Trousered Philanthropists,” at the Harriet Irving Library of the University of New Brunswick, Canada, somewhere in 1976. I was temporarily working as a (student) library assistant during the summer, mainly stacking books hopefully at right places, using the Dewey decimal index, to earn some cash during my master’s studies. It was Mrs. A. Jayeratnam Wilson who fixed me that job who was a Librarian.
Harper Lee
Quite fresh from Sinhala education in Sri Lanka, I don’t think I could fully well understand the meaning of the novel or its significance for racial/ethnic or social reconciliation, although I believe racial/ethnic amity was ingrained in me from my childhood or family even at that time. Otherwise, the Sinhala novels of that time particularly of Gunadasa Amarasekera genre were supposed to give a ‘unitary perspective’ on culture or civilization, on his own admission.
What impressed me of ‘Mockingbird’ first were the characters. Scout, the tomboy who relates the story, Atticus her sober and wise father, and Scout’s older brother and protector, Jem or Jeremy, were my immediate acquantances. Of course Calpurnia made me think little deeper about race relations, who was the African American (or Negro) housemaid at Finchs’ household. She was the closest thing to a mother to Scout and Jeremy, as the actual mother had died very early in their lives.
