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To Kill a Mockingbird Glossary and Theme List ​ BLSE Dramaturgy 2015 Brief biographical information Harper Lee— "Lee was born in Monroeville on April 28, 1926, the youngest child of Amasa Coleman Lee, a lawyer, and Frances Finch. She denies that the story of To Kill a Mockingbird is autobiographical, but her fiction ​ ​ was certainly influenced and shaped by her childhood experiences, shared with a brother and two sisters and fellow author­to­be Truman Capote, a frequent summer visitor to Monroeville. As she described this ​ ​ ​ period of her life in a 1965 interview, "We had to use our own devices in our play, for our entertainment. We didn't have much money . We didn't have toys, nothing was done for us, so the result was that we lived in our imagination most of the time. We devised things; we were readers and we would transfer everything we had seen on the printed page to the backyard in the form of high drama." ­ See more at: http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h­1126#sthash.QkcX2tQP.fOUHXiBm.dpuf Chronology of Nelle Harper Lee’s Life (Up to Publication of Horton Foote’s film adaptation of TKaM 1926 Nelle Harper Lee is born on 28 April in Monroeville to Amasa Coleman and Frances Finch Lee. 1927­ Amasa Lee serves in the Alabama State Legislature. 1939 1929­ Edits the Monroe Journal. 1947 ​ 1928­ Truman Capote, a childhood friend of Harper Lee’s, lives with relatives in Monroeville, next door to the Lee family. 1933 1931 Scottsboro Incident occurs in March and begins litigation that will continue for twenty years. 1932 U.S. Supreme Court reverses the Scottsboro conviction and orders a new trial. Scottsboro youths retried. 1933 Judge Horton rejects jury’s finding of guilty and subsequently fails to be reelected. 1936 Another retrial of Scottsboro case. 1937 All major Alabama newspapers urge the release of the Scottsboro defendants. 1944­ Harper Lee attends Huntingdon College, a private school for women in Montgomery, Alabama. 1945 Continues her undergraduate studies at the University of Alabama, where she writes for several student publications 1945­ and in 1946­47 edits the Rammer­Jammer, a humor magazine. To the October issue she contributes a one­act play ​ ​ 1950 satirizing a southern politician who proclaims that “Our very lives are being threatened by the hordes of evildoers full of sin. …SIN, my friends…who want to tear down all barriers of any kind between ourselves and our colored friends,” and who argues in favor of creating stricter voting requirements based, ironically, on the ability to interpret the constitution (an actual requirement for would­be voters in Alabama at the time). In the February issue she parodies country newspapers. One such is The Jackassonian Democrat, complete with the logo of two white­sheeted ​ ​ figures carrying burning crosses. Enrolls in the University of Alabama School of Law to have stack privileges in the library. Her education includes a 1947 term as an exchange student at Oxford University in England. Capote publishes his first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms; one of the novel’s characters, the tomboyish Idabel, is 1948 ​ ​ based in part on Lee. Lee moves to New York City, where she works as an airline reservation clerk for Eastern Air Lines and British Overseas Airways Corporation. Several years later Lee quits her job when she receives a loan from friends to write 1950 full time for a year. The last of the Scottsboro boys is paroled. Rosa Parks is arrested on 1 December for violating the bus segregation ordinance in Montgomery. Four days later 1955 the famous bus boycott commences in that city. 1955­ A black woman, Autherine Lucy, attempts to enroll in the University of Alabama as a student, and eventually, 1956 following months of litigation, is forced to withdraw after mobs of whites begin rioting on the campus. 1956 The bus boycott ends on 21 December and buses are integrated. Harper Lee completes the first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird (TKM) in June and delivers the manuscript to editor 1958 ​ ​ ​ ​ Tay Hohoff at J. B. Lippincott. Lee begins the final editing process. The report of the murder of the Clutter family of Kansas appears in the New York Times on 15 November, catching ​ ​ the attention of Capote, who asks Lee to accompany him to Kansas to research a book on the case. By this time, TKM is entirely complete and in press. In December, Lee and Capote travel to Garden City, Kansas, where ​ interviews of townspeople proceed. The two writers both make mental notes on each interview, returning at nights to the Warren Hotel to type the day’s information. Capote, in an interview with George Plimpton in the New York ​ 1959 Times Book Review, details some of Lee’s assistance on the novel: “She went on a number of interviews; she typed ​ her own notes, and I had these and could refer to them. She was extremely helpful in the beginning, when we weren’t making much headway with the town’s people, by making friends with the wives of the people I wanted to meet.” Of his friend, Capote said, “She is a gifted woman, courageous, and with a warmth that instantly kindles most people, however suspicious or dour” (January 16, 1966). Lee is dining with Capote at the chief detective’s house on the night the suspects are arrested. Lee and Capote are present for the opening of the Clutter case trial on 22 March. This is one of many trips on which Lee accompanies Capote to Kansas, giving him encouragement when the investigation becomes discouraging. In July, official publication date of TKM, issued by J. B. Lippincott, is delayed until fall, when several book clubs 1960 choose it as a selection; it becomes a Literary Guild Selection, a Book­of­the Month Club Alternate, and a Readers Digest Condensed Book. TKM becomes a British Book Society Choice and is subsequently issued in the United ​ ​ Kingdom by Heinemann. TKM wins the Alabama Association Award in April. Lee also writes an article entitled “Love—in Other Words,” ​ which is printed in the April issue of Vogue. In the spring, Robert Mulligan and Alan Pakula purchase the film rights ​ ​ to TKM, which Pakula produces and Mulligan directs for Universal Pictures. Gregory Peck is chosen for the part of ​ ​ Atticus Finch. Harper Lee declines an offer to write the screenplay; the task falls to Horton Foote. TKM wins the ​ ​ Pulitzer Prize for Literature in April. Harper Lee is the first woman to win the prize since Ellen Glasgow received it 1961 in 1942. By this time, the novel has sold five hundred thousand copies and has been translated into ten languages. In December, the novel wins the Brotherhood Award of the National Conference on Christians and Jews. Also, Lee’s “Christmas to Me” appears inMcCall’s. The story is an account of opening a card given to her by friends on ​ ​ Christmas morning: “You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas.” (Lee actually declined the money as a gift but accepted it as a loan, which she paid back with interest.) Wins the Bestseller’s Paperback Award for the year. Two years after the publication ofTKM, it has sold two and a ​ ​ half million copies in hardback editions and two million paperback copies. In May, Lee receives an honorary doctorate from Mount Holyoke College. She also goes to Hollywood as a special consultant to producers of the film 1962 based on her novel. The film, To Kill a Mockingbird, premieres, and that winter is nominated for eight Academy ​ ​ Awards, ultimately winning four, including best actor (Peck) and best screenplay (Foote). Peck pays tribute to Lee, displaying Amasa Lee’s gold watch, which she had given the actor. In April, Capote and Lee travel from Monroeville to Kansas, where the murderers of the Clutter family are on death 1963 row. Just hours before his execution, killer Perry Smith writes a letter to Capote and Lee. 1964 Publication of Horton Foote’s film script of TKM with foreword by Harper Lee. ​ ​ Maycomb, Alabama­­Harper Lee's hometown was Monroeville, Alabama. Although Maycomb is ​ fictional, there are definite autobiographical elements in the play. Monroeville, Alabama celebrates the author and the work yearly by staging a production of the play. Two decades ago, McCoy told me, Monroe County drew about two thousand visitors a year. Now the annual tally was closer to twenty thousand and climbing, and a good four­fifths of thos folks say that the novel is what brought them. The museum's annual spring production on the play To Kill A Mockingbird draws visitors to a ​ ​ stage only Monroeville can offer. The first act unfolds on the lawn of the Old Courthouse Museum, where the breeze carries the scent of pin azaleas and mockingbirds sometimes alight on tree branches. The second act, the infamous trial, takes place inside, in the old­fashioned courtroom familiar to anyone who watches the movie. Every year, the performances sell out. (Mills, Marja, The Mockingbird Next Door: Life With Harper Lee. New York: Penguin Books. ​ ​ 2014. p.10) ­­a useful website: http://www.southernliterarytrail.org/monroeville.html ​ ​ ­­Also pertaining to Monroeville's yearly performance are two YouTube clips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHpuMF0iMx4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YklUzAYs9Vg Theme: porches (7) ­ porch­sitting is an important activity in the South. Considered a part of the home, ​ the front porch functions as both a barrier and liminal space between the public and private spheres, as well as an important location of social exchange.

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