A Study Of To Kill A Mockingbird From The Perspective Of New Historicism

In 1960 To Kill a Mockingbird was published.Soon it attracted a great deal of readers and astonished American literary world.The author Harper Lee employed a brand-new perspective of na?ve children to tell the story of cruel morality in American South.Though she always claimed her book to be a simple love story,there's no doubt that it is one of the masterpieces of American novels.This book won Pulitzer Prize in 1961,which made Lee one of the major writers of Southern literature and even modern American literature.Last year Lee passed away,and the only novel of her is the precious legacy to the whole world.To Kill a Mockingbird reshows the scenes of American South in the 1930 s,the historical elements of which have drawn much attention of extensive critics.Many scholars have studied the historical background of the novel,many of them,however,only focus on the setting of Great Depression.In fact,the events and ideology of the 1950 s when Lee wrote the novel also have great influence on the work as much as those of the 1930 s.Lee rewrote the notorious Emmett Till Case and turned it into Tom Robinson trial that displayed the harm of racism to human nature,and the novel itself is a response to the Brown decision at that time.It shows that text not only reflects history but also participates in history and constructs a new one.This finding accords with the theory of New Historicism.From the perspective of New Historicists,history is no longer objective;instead,it is a textual structure built by people.History and text interweave with each other to form an open net.Besides,traditional historical narratives are reduced to organs of authority,but the New Historicism concentrates on the history of the Other.To Kill a Mockingbird pays close attention to the destiny of the Other by turning the “History” into “histories”.The silent black people,the imprisoned Arthur Radley and female characters like Mayella,are all examples of marginalized people.Children learn social mores and how to behave by observing them and people from their own class.Through this process,the novel reveals the corruption of Southern morality and the darkness of human nature.Based on these facts,this thesis intends to interpret the novel from the perspective of New Historicism.Through the analysis of intertexuality of the historical context of To Kill a Mockingbird and the text,the thesis will try to achieve two aims: on the one hand,it will demonstrate that the novel not only reflects features of Southern society in mid 1930 s and in the 1950 s,but also reconstructs the history and produces a new one;on the other hand,it will verify the author's concern about the fate of the Other and her challenge of white-male-leading social power structure through the historical elements hidden from the main stream of power.Finally,the thesis comes to the conclusion that To Kill a Mockingbird expresses the author's historical awareness and humanistic care.